


The Seeker and The Black Dove

by veridium_bye



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, F/M, Femslash, Friends to Lovers, Mage Rebellion, Mage Rights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 13:50:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16019237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veridium_bye/pseuds/veridium_bye
Summary: Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast has lived a life of discipline, control, and honor. Lady Olivia Sinclair has lived one of intrigue, adventure, and terror. One has built a wall of stoicism, the other of sweetness. Out of all possible outcomes to their friendship, no one could foresee such an unlikely attraction. This is the story of how the woman who would become known as the Black Dove of Orlais captured the heart of one of the most fearsome women in all of Thedas.





	1. A New Approach

“Cassandra, if I may have a word?” The Inquisitor’s voice echoed as she made her way to the top of the stairs to Cassandra’s corner loft in the Smith’s shop. She found the Seeker diligently reading through reports from Sister Leliana’s people, engrossed in the details from the recon in the Exalted Plains. Ramparts abandoned, towns destroyed, funeral pyres left unlit and unburned? It was going to be a hot mess to clean up.

“Certainly, my friend,” she replied, thankful for the brief distraction from such grotesque readings.

Theia grinned, coming to stand across the table from her, the same table where they had shared many conversations together at this point in their time together. The day was shining bright and hopeful from the windows; it was a productive and high-spirited day at Skyhold. Such ambiances were precious these days in the face of so much uncertainty.

“I suppose you would prefer if I be straight-forward, and not dance with clever metaphors,” the Inquisitor preluded, holding her hands together behind her back, dressed in finely-tailored resting clothes.

Cassandra’s eyes narrowed. “Typically, yes. However, such a preamble leaves me cautious as to why you would elect to do so.”

Theia smirked. “I…I wish to discuss a certain, personal matter.”

“And?”

“It concerns Olivia.”

Cassandra’s eyebrows raised, and she leaned back away from the table and onto one hip. She folded her arms, priming her defensive strategy.

“I am not sure what there is to discuss, Inquisitor. What exactly have you heard?”

“Cassandra,” Theia shook her head once, a sly smile on her lips forming now, “we all saw you two at the wedding. You have been spending quite a lot of time together, considering your fields are not directly collaborative.”

“I wholeheartedly disagree. Her projects with Dagna have considerable potential to aid those of us who do not have the ability to conjure Magic in battle. It makes sense that we communicate on such matters, she must have the perspective of warriors advising her work.”

Theia’s eyes widened a bit as she shrugged. “It is a wonder you know so much about the inner workings of her role here, considering she hasn’t even been here more than a couple of weeks.”

Cassandra paused, swallowing hard as she felt the pressure of secrecy bearing down on her shoulders. She hadn’t even been fully honest with Olivia on such things, and now the Inquisitor was pushing her to divulge that which she only partially understood herself. How could she express feelings and proclivities that were so alien to her, and yet had refused to leave her as the days went by?

“Inquisitor, I do not pretend to be unaffected by Olivia’s presence. She is, as you know a sociable and pleasant individual,” Cassandra rounded the corner of the table in order to face Theia directly face-to-face, no furniture or obstacles between the two opinionated women.

“Seeker, you and I have shared a great deal together. You know my inner sentimentalities better than most of the people here, save for Josephine and perhaps Solas out of sheer necessity. Why are you fighting me so hard?”

Cassandra’s eyes narrowed on her friend, who looked like she had been chewing on this bone for a while.

“I agree that we have shared vulnerabilities, but, I fail to see how that is relevant to this discussion.”

“For someone whom I have always trusted to be blunt and honest, you are being insufferably coy.”

“I am not. I am simply inquiring as to why any of this needs to be talked about in open air in the middle of a work day.”

“Because I see what your eyes look like when you gaze in her direction, and I know firsthand how it feels to look at someone like that. You feign indifference, like I have in the past where secret feelings are concerned. You may be able to scare everyone else off from inquiring but it does not deter me. You are fond of her,” Theia turned her shoulders in order to face her friend, who had looked away during her monologue.

There was a tense pause in the air for a moment, whilst Cassandra took inventory of all the data Theia had on her. This was quite the conversation to have – and one that departed from the precedent of their friendship – but Theia was unwavering in her goal. Cassandra could respect that: it did concern the affairs of one of her oldest friends, after all. She remembered when, during one of their now infamous conversations, Olivia mentioned how Theia was the guardian of the group during their travels, always escorting and overseeing her misadventures. In these kinds of moments, she saw how that rung true.

“Am I not allowed to have a certain degree of privacy, then? Or is my focus on someone so close to you deny me that right?” she admitted, in her own way. Theia released the air in her lungs, satisfied that Cassandra would be candid with her, and not send her away with questions-as-answers and denials.

“I endured a great deal of scrutiny when Josephine and I began our relationship, and you will undoubtedly face similar things. However, your reputation is different than mine, as is Olivia’s from Josephine’s. Those are a given. My concern is that you perhaps misunderstand Olivia’s personality,” Theia turned and walked towards the loft railing, gazing down at the hammering Smiths while the gears in her mind worked.

“Olivia and I have spent little time together in comparison to what you two have shared. I do not think it is a practical comparison,” Cassandra retorted, stepping forward and joining her friend at her side.

“That is not what I meant, Cassandra. I was referring to Olivia’s personality in regards to her philosophy surrounding love, and entanglements of a more intimate nature.”

“Are you referring to her past as a Temptress?”

Theia nodded. “Partially, yes, I am. However, it took a great deal of suffering and endurance for her to get to where she is now. You see,” the Inquisitor took a breath, certain rough memories becoming illuminated in her mind, “Olivia did what she had to do for the greater good of us all. Her…talents, secured us money when we were destitute, food when we were starving, shelter during storms and cold nights. I know Veronica and I put on a good, sturdy show with our tenacious selves, but, I do not embellish when I say that Olivia was just as, if not more the vital provider of safety as any of us were.”

Cassandra listened, fascinated and at the same time, feeling a pang of heartache imagining Olivia sacrificing herself night after night with random strangers, or beguiling tumultuous environments in pubs and inns across Thedas. She was a fearsome woman, but such a task would wear on anyone. Theia continued her speech, an undertone of sorrow in her voice:

“Olivia has lived for everyone else in her life. First it was her family, and then us in the Circle, and when we went on the road during the Rebellion…she made choices that would scare any Chevalier to think about. I am ferociously protective of her because I have had to be, and also because she is a dear friend, whom I love like she were a limb of my own body.”

Cassandra’s lips pursed as she made eye contact with the Inquisitor. Her brow furrowed, giving off a strong façade, but her feelings betrayed her intimidating aesthetic.

“Do you believe I am a threat to her safety, then?” Cassandra asked honestly, feeling tense in even suggesting such a thing.

“Not at all, Cassandra. In fact, it relieves me even contemplating she could end up with someone as steadfast and pure of intention as you. My concern is the threat she poses to you,” Theia turned her body to face her friend now, folding her arms.

“Inquisitor?”

“Cassandra, everyone knows you secretly have a romantic’s heart. You crave the most beautiful parts of life, and that is something I adore about you. But, Olivia has closed herself off to such things. At least, from her own inner self. She looks as though she is steeped in such air all day and night, but, she has mastered the Orlesian masquerade well.”

“So, you believe her to be incapable of a sincere relationship?”

“In a way, yes. Her outlook on such things is…it is scorned. Many men and quite a few women have tried to seduce her on it before. No one has prevailed. But she is not a conquest, and if you treat her as such, she will simply deflect.”

“I did not wish to treat her as a conquest, Inquisitor. If anything, I am struggling with the idea of being infatuated with her myself. Perhaps I will not pursue it any further.”

Cassandra turned and walked away from the railing, returning to the table and taking a seat before her pile of parchment. She seemed to have dismissed the topic in the most gentile way she could. But, Theia was not done. Following her for a few steps, Theia leaned onto one hip as she continued her plea.

“What makes you so uncomfortable with the idea of loving a woman, anyway?” she asked the question everyone from Leliana, to Scout Harding, to Quartermaster Harritt wanted to know about the Seeker. Surely, it was not because such relationships were unheard of in Orlais, or indeed all of Thedas. Women’s sexuality was a sordid topic, but, if the Seeker wished to take another woman as a lover it would hardly be a reason to ostracize her.

Cassandra remained quiet, trying to give off the appearance that she was preoccupying herself.

“Cassandra.” Theia pushed.

The Seeker set down the paper she held, and folded her fingers together on the table.

“All of my life, Inquisitor, I have fought the overbearing tide of my family’s reputation and demands of their women. I have countered every pull, decided my life for myself, and stood by my faith as much as I could. I have always been focused on how I can best reflect the responsibilities of someone in my profession: A Seeker, the Divine’s right hand, a loyal servant of the Chantry. These commitments have been integral to my conscience for my entire life.”

“Yes, I know. I still do not see why you have such an affront to women, of all things. Leliana’s lover is the Hero of Fereldan, and she is still a critical figure in the Chantry. You both are being deliberated as names for the next Divine.”

“Precisely. Now, I must contend with the unfortunate nature of a distraction while such a choice looms.”

“Olivia is not a distraction, do not play with me, Seeker,” Theia said more adamantly, coming to take a seat across from her friend so as to regain an eye-level placement with her. “Divine or no Divine, you are still responsible to your first and most vital charge, and that is your emotional wellbeing. Can you really stifle the desire for love and happiness that you crave, that we all crave, for the sake of duty?”

“My duty and my emotions work in tandem, Inquisitor. I have not estranged them.”

“Bullshit. You have simply found it easier to use the emotions that embolden you as a warrior. Anger, impulsivity, determination, all of it is so convenient. Not like those troublesome ones, like love, compassion, and sympathy.”

“I am not some taciturn statue in the Skyhold gardens.”

“No, but are you really contented to return your body to the dust and dirt of this world without knowing what it is to love and be loved in return?”

“I have known love, surely, Inquisitor, and it did not absolve my life of its obligations. If anything, it complicated them.”

“Of course, Seeker, that is how you know it’s worth a damn. Instead of witnessing it from the outside-looking-in by reading one of Varric’s lewd novels, you should take a chance to inspire it in real life. Perhaps that calcified heart in your chest may beat once more.”

Their rough conversation was betrayed by the look of Theia’s smile. Yes, she was bestowing a solid dose of tough love onto her friend, who was in many ways her senior – age, experience, etc. – but Theia felt confident that in this specific instance, she would be the one to teach Cassandra a thing or two about what it was to love and let go.

“Think about it. Such chances do not come by every day in our lives. We may be fighting off the doom of the world, but you may want to contemplate what will be awaiting you if we come back from the final battle victorious.”

At that, Theia took her leave, returning to her vast number of responsibilities that undoubtedly awaited her back down on the ground. In her seclusion once more, the Seeker stood from her chair and went to the window, leaning up against its frame as she peered out to the open grounds.

There, in a rare leave from the Mage’s tower, was none other than Olivia herself. She was wearing one of those country-maiden-looking dresses that always troubled any assumptions about her being some studious hermit, or opulent noblewoman. She was experimenting again, Dagna at her side, wearing goggles. She watched as Olivia held up her hand, three fingers counting down until something would be deployed.

Three, two, one.

“Pull!” Olivia yelled, her voice faint all the way up in Cassandra’s workspace.

Then, a plume of white and translucent smoke appeared on the open ground before them. Dagna was observing and taking notes as Olivia then motioned her hands. She was enchanting something, and as she tossed her arms up above her head, her weight shifting onto her toes, the ground before them began to shimmer and glisten like the winter lights in the sky at night. A wind current softly blew as Olivia watched her handiwork.

Then, it all went still. A moment of silence and stillness befell Olivia and Dagna, who looked at each other with anticipation. Theia arrived at her side, having returned from her brief meeting with the Seeker. She patted Olivia on the back as her friend picked up a rock from the ground beside her.

With an anxious expression, she tossed the rock onto the ground where the lights had been. All at once, when the rock hit the ground, it all became engulfed in a substance that appeared out of nowhere. It looked sticky, like a wax, or a tar substance. It was a trap, meant to slow bandits, monsters, or any other unwanted visitors around Inquisition encampments. Olivia had been writing up recipes for months on her own time, but when she joined up, she found her notes in her old journal and decided to pursue it again, this time with the resources to do so, and Dagna’s brilliance to collaborate.

Seeing her work pull off, Olivia erupted into joyous laughter, jumping up in the air and then leaping into Theia’s arms. The Inquisitor smiled, holding her tight and swinging her around in the air.

“You did it!” Cassandra could hear Theia yell, even with Olivia’s jubilant laughter filling the open air. Dagna looked so satisfied, pulling her goggles off of her face. It wasn’t long before Olivia had pulled away in order to high-five her research compatriot.

From her view all the way up in the window, the Seeker felt safe enough to smile. Olivia was such an unapologetically happy soul on the surface, it worried her to think deep down she was struggling with her identity and her ambitions. She lit up a room, hell, she lit up the world. She was the kind of person people hungered to be around, and indeed, hungered to use in order to lighten up their own lives. She could understand why Olivia would be jaded by that kind of reality.

Could Cassandra, then, go back on so many of her innermost rules for such a person? Would a pairing like them even work? Even though she fought her reputation and stereotypes people held her to, even she had to admit she was not an easy personality to be around. Olivia had seemed to be undaunted, but, could she have a limit? Could she love someone like that, and not simply be fond of them as a friend?

Maybe Theia was right. Maybe a risk was in order.

\--

As another day of work came to a close, Olivia was diligent in her cleaning. Her workspace order was paramount to her, and it was most unwise to let substances or resonating powders possibly intermingle by being messy. Wiping down her desk one last time with a dampened rag, she exhaled and rubbed her neck with her hand. Ingredients, ratios, measurements, and theories swirled in her head like a perfect storm – something she thrived doing. They were like meditations for her, and helped her center herself when the stress of the day distracted her.

Though, her solitude to do so was curtailed by the sound of the tower side door opening.

Grinning automatically out of politeness, she turned to look over her shoulder. Her grin became sincere when she saw it was the Seeker, her most determined conversational companion in the last several days since she had arrived at Skyhold. Folding the rag against her waist, she wondered what brought her here this time.

“Is this the most time you’ve ever spent voluntarily in the sanctum of Mages, Seeker? If so, I feel honored,” she said aloud, before turning her attention back to her clean workspace.

Cassandra smirked, closing the door behind her and folding her arms behind her back as she approached. “Though it may seem hard to believe, I do not shrink away from the associations of Mages. I merely exercise caution in doing so.”

Olivia tossed the rag to the side of the table and turned to face her guest, hands stained and dusty from her work as she dusted them off.

“What about Mages who know how to make things explode and trap living things in pits of conjured tar?” she teased, her nose doing that quintessential crinkle as she spoke.

Cassandra raised her brow and nodded once. “I’m sure I can make exceptions, so long as you do not make me your experimental subject without my consent.”

“You have a deal. Now, why grace my hallowed Mage’s study?” Olivia folded her arms, tilting her head with a kind but discerning gaze.

“I came to ask,” Cassandra stopped and chuckled a bit, looking away as she felt the bashfulness in her settle in, “if you would want to spend your supper time with me tomorrow night.”

Olivia’s eyes widened a bit. “Oh? You want to come to supper in the Great Hall for once?”

“No, not exactly, I have my own plans. If you would consent to being my company, I would be most grateful.”

This was most odd to Olivia, hearing this come from a woman she was sure would sooner turn to stone than admit something vulnerable or sentimental out in open air. Theia had teased behind her back that Cassandra was secretly the softest and most romantic person of them all, but Olivia had scarcely seen evidence to back her claim. When they spent time together, it was always a game of contrasts: Cassandra would say something precise and exact, and then Olivia would soften the criticism or challenge its absolution. Such was their dynamic up until this point – but now, there was a shift taking place.

“I…I would. Are you preparing to assassinate me?” Olivia teased some more.

“No! Never, I…” Cassandra took a breath, “I just wished to return a kindness you have given to me. I will see you tomorrow, do take care, Lady Olivia.”

Watching Cassandra bow her head slightly and then withdraw from the room, back out the door from whence she entered, Olivia teetered on her feet. What kind of misadventure was about to occur? Perhaps, when all was said and done, she would be wishing it was an assassination attempt after all.

Still, with the image of Cassandra hesitant in her words like a flirtatious school-aged girl, Olivia couldn’t help but smile to herself. What a curious woman, she was.


	2. Candles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The surprise the Seeker has in store for Olivia proves more astonishing than not. A dinner and a fireplace prove most fertile ground for conversation.

“Seeker, what in the world have you gotten me into?” Olivia had her hands out in front of her ready to brace on things she could not see. Cassandra had blindfolded her – perhaps the kinkiest thing the Seeker had done in many, many years – but with more innocent intentions.

“Just a moment longer,” Cassandra was rushing around her for Maker knows what. Olivia could sense her body and the light wind that she cultivated from her movement. Meanwhile, Olivia was standing in the middle of the room all alone and without sight to give her context. She had been guided up two flights of stairs, stone cold to the touch under her feet, and into what she imagined was a square room with wood flooring. That was all the intelligence she had garnered in their journey together.

“A moment is an eternity when you have no idea where you are!” she grinned, letting her hands fall to her sides.

“This is a surprise, Olivia, in case you could not tell,” Cassandra replied, her wit covering for her slight panic. A couple more adjustments and she would be at last ready for the reveal. Returning to Olivia in the middle of the room, she took a breath.

“Alright, count to ten in your mind, and take off the blindfold,” she ordered. Olivia sensed her withdraw from close proximity once more, and she huffed with a sense of humor under her breath.

“Fine, I’m counting now!” she said, eyebrow raised.

Cassandra flattened out the resting coat she had on – no armor this time, and she felt quite out of her element. She hadn’t worn this pair of clothing in months, and never in front of another person. It was charcoal black, with embroidered geometric designs on the hem of the waist, sleeves, and collar, similar in design to the Inquisitor’s style, but more austere and with less of a personal flare. The stiff collar around her neck was tight and made her nervous breathing feel even more rigid. She stood about 15 feet away, by the base of the tower stairs. She wanted to look gallant, so she leaned up against the wood beam, hands together in front of her.

Three, two, one, she predicted.

“Aha! Time’s up!” Olivia said gleefully, hands reaching and ripping off the blindfold. After her eyes blinked in a flurry to adjust to the light, her mouth immediately dropped, and the whimsy in her eyes disappeared and was replaced with genuine astonishment. Turning around in her center area, she saw what she had never predicted to see in her life, let alone in a Mage’s study tower in the middle of the Frostbacks.

The room had candles paired and placed all over the room, on shelves, tables, book stacks, any flat surface that was deemed appropriate. Their light was warm and welcoming, and she smelled a light hint of vanilla spice emanating from them. Beyond the candles, there was the fireplace as well, less ornamental than the ones in the Great Hall, but still inviting. When she turned around to see what was in front of the fire, she saw a red blanket – the same one Cassandra had loaned her when she was looking after Naomi in her sick bed, repurposed – and a basket of what looked like breads and a small pot. Then, beside it, a bottle of wine from the pub was unopened.

It was like she had become transported into a storybook, some kind of romance novella wherein the maiden was being charmed out of her skirts and into the arms of some charming Knight or Chevalier. It had come to life, but still felt surreal, like she could blink or breathe heavily and it would all be scattered into the air like dust. Olivia put her hand to her mouth, fingers lightly grazing on her lips, as she felt as though her heart stopped beating.

“Cassandra,” she breathed, turning back around to see where her companion had gone, but she was not hiding. There she stood, against the beam, dressed in that black coat and slacks, looking positively tall, dark, and handsome. Seeing her out of Seeker armor was almost as confounding as the room was to her.

“You did all of this for me?” she asked, making eye contact with her.

Cassandra had been grinning non-stop with hopefulness, and hearing the question, she thought that maybe it meant this was a good thing.

“Yes, I…thought it may be my turn to surprise you with a meal and conversation,” she responded, breaking away from the beam and stepping towards her.

Olivia was quiet – and Olivia was never quiet – as she watched her approach. Her hand fell to fiddle with the other. She nervously pinched the flesh between her thumb and index finger. “I…I don’t know what to say…” she scanned the room once more. Yep, it was all still there. It was real, and all for her.

“You do not owe me any thanks. All that I ask is that you enjoy it,” Cassandra stood in front of her, no more than a foot apart from her. Her head had tilted to one side, endearing and charming. Olivia’s mouth remained opened in shock, as she hastily processed all that was in front of her.

“I would…love to,” she grinned, pushing a strand of her let-down hair behind her ear. As she accepted the offer, she couldn’t help but feel her flight or fight instincts kick in like they always did were intimacy was involved. This was uncharted territory, and normally way out of bounds for her when it came to the companionship of another. Olivia was always ready for kindness and sweetness, but perhaps romance? Actual, hearty romance? It was a stranger to her.

Still, her heart said stay.

\--

Olivia’s laughter was more heartening and illuminating on her skin than any of the candles could ever hope to be. She held a piece of bread to her smiling teeth as she did it, her dimples out in full force as leaned over her bent knees. They had sat on the floor for some time now, meandering through their meal like they had nowhere else to be for the next month.

“She really did that? What a silly goose!” Olivia said through her laughter, melodic and in tune. Across from her and with the basket in between them, Cassandra was sitting on one hip, a leg bent upwards with one arm supporting her upper body. She was nodding and insisting, a genuine smile on her lips as well, though more subtle.

“Yes, and then she had the audacity to tell me that it was an estimate and not a miscalculation! I did not know she was so poor at mathematics,” Cassandra was recounting the story of when Theia had incorrectly counted the number of crystal shards they had locked onto in the Forbidden Oasis. The Inquisitor was quite acidic when she was caught in her mistake, and it proved hilarious to see her all ruffled up, ego bruised in the middle of a barren desert.

Olivia’s laughter had calmed into a giggle in her throat as she put the bread piece in her mouth. “She was always such a proud girl. She would get so upset when village boys would flirt with her. The poor things would have their breeches frosted over before they could say anything.”

“I assume that may be why they preferred your company?” Cassandra asked, turning the attention from their friends whom they had discussed for a while, and placing it directly unto her.

Olivia’s chuckling subsided fully now, but she kept the pleasant facial expression. She let her legs fall flat onto the floor, adjusting her dress skirt over her thighs, and reaching for her chalice of wine. “I…was always more permissible to be around. It was drummed into me from an early age. I hardly knew any better, I’m afraid.”

“You never spoke about your childhood…” Cassandra pressed a bit further, her Seeker title showing again. Olivia had always been open, or at least came across as such. Perhaps she felt a little more entitled than she had been in the past to knowing about her life.

“I do not have one to speak of, really,” Olivia’s tone became less cheerful. “I hear you don’t have patience for stories of Mage suffering.”

“I do, in fact.”

“Oh? Or is it just mine?”

Cassandra blinked, feeling a twist in her gut as her bluff was called. She had not expected such a blunt retort from Olivia’s sugary words.

“I am trying to be more amiable, even though people seem to believe otherwise.”

“…Why so, Seeker? You suspect duplicity from me? Am, I, too, some double-agent working for the King of Fereldan?” she playfully whispered, her shoulders hunching as she held her chalice between both of her palms.

Cassandra smirked, reaching for another piece of fruit from the basket she had gathered. “I only wish to understand you, Olivia. There is no agenda for me, here.”

There was a pause, while Olivia stared at her and attempted to ascertain just what kind of creature had stolen Cassandra’s body in order to accompany her this evening. It was as if the children had piled on top of each other into a costume, and were now attempting to beguile the fair woman they decorated with flowers. She wondered if the other shoe would drop, and it would all dissolve. Perhaps a dream, or a Fade simulation, and not reality.

“Fine. I will regale you with my life,” she teased, setting down her wine, and leaning back onto her hands that held her upright. She stared up at the ceiling, collecting her memories in her mind’s eye whilst she bit her lip. Cassandra didn’t take her eyes off of her, soaking in every single mannerism, wishing she could bottle it up and save it for when she was in a disagreeable mood, or having a difficult day.

“I was born near the Free Marches, on my family’s farmland. We were gentry, and our economy was agriculture. My Mother was higher-born than my Father, but he was a good man. He worked so hard, day in and day out, to provide the life we had. Uh…well, I was an only child. My Mother almost died giving birth to my stillborn sister. So, then, she turned her attention on me as the great hope for the family’s future. When I matured into a beautiful young girl, she immediately sent me away for schooling, where I learned all the refined qualities of a Noble-bred child. Hm…it was then I found a talent for dance and performance art. When my Mother found out, hah, she put in private training at once! No time to waste, what with my budding age! I was to be the best little dancer in all of Orlais! Marry some gallavanting Chevalier and be settled for life!”

Olivia’s voice was animated and exhilarating to listen to when she told a story. The way she tossed her head from side to side, shuffled her weight between her hips, fiddled her toes downwards and upwards. It was a diversion from the rather melancholic nature of her tale. The dancer she had performed with at the Wedding had a less-than-savory origin story.

“Is that when your powers manifested?” Cassandra propelled with her questioning, her infamous penchant for getting to the bottom of things.

Olivia shook her head with a sorry expression. “I was ten when that started. I kept it from my Mother, even as nosy and overbearing as that woman was. Is. Anyhow, I wasn’t very promising at the start. Ever so often, something would make me anxious or nervous, and something like a fire spark or frost would come from my fingertips.”

“So, then, how did you ever get sent to the Circle?”

“It was a long while before that happened. My training in acting and dancing helped me conceal my condition. Hah, it was actually my debut, in a small students’ operetta in the Capitol, when my parents found out. I was nineteen at the time, and had been training for seven years for this one moment. I stumbled mid-performance, and I got so frightened of the audience that the floor turned into an ice sheet that engulfed the entire stage. It sent dancers sliding and tripping, it was just…a mess, a complete mess,” her hands waved in the air as she grinned, covering for her residual embarrassment.

Cassandra’s eyes widened slightly. “I believe I heard about that. The Divine’s couriers were joking one day about a Mage making an Opera performance turn into some sort of natural disaster,” she said, trying to recall it fully for posterity. Seeing Olivia’s cheeks turn slightly red in hue, though, she abandoned pursuit and cleared her throat. “Oh, what I meant to say was, it sounded like a most unfortunate accident.”

Olivia’s brow had furrowed as she stared down at her lap. “It was. My Mother was inconsolable for days. The hopes of the family, dashed to destitution! No man with senses would marry me, we were done for. Nevermind that my Father had supported us for years and we never wanted for anything,” she sounded caustic as the topic of her Mother’s selfishness became more centered. Her mocking tone was the most unforgiving Cassandra had ever seen her become. It looked as though she had hit a nerve Olivia did not explore very often.

“So, ashamed, they sent you to the Ostwick Circle.” Cassandra assumed.

“No, I actually sent myself, a year after my failed debut, when I was twenty.”

The Seeker gazed back at her quickly, surprised and curious as to why she would do such a thing to herself. It wasn’t unheard of for Mages to go of their own volition – as muddied as such a concept was – but to hear someone who would otherwise have a life in relative comfort was rarer. Usually parents sent them for their own good, beyond their consent or advisement.

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to be away from Mother’s influence. I wanted to leave, be somewhere new. I thought I had a chance at freedom. The Circle was…well, as you can imagine, anything but. Still, I relished the distance from society.”

“That is…not the story I expected.”

“No? What did you expect?” Olivia smiled softly, taking her soup into her lap and fiddling with the spoon, “that I wandered like a forest nymph, freezing and burning bystanders until Templars detained me?”

“No, but I did expect some sort of…well, tragedy.”

“And that was not a tragic story?”

“It is unlike most stories of Mage’s oppression I have heard.”

“You clearly have not stopped to listen, then, Cassandra,” Olivia took a spoonful of soup and swallowed it quickly. “Have you heard Felicity’s story? About how she saved her entire family from a flash flood in her village by freezing the water before it would overtake their home? She was nine years old.”

“I…no, I have not.”

“Or Clara’s? She mapped out an entire curriculum in her Circle for child Mages to be tutored and allowed to be home for half the year, one based on having them meditate and become in harmony with their emotional needs. She also wanted to tutor non-magical parents on how to best support their children. The Templars who supervised her refused her request to the Order, and so nothing changed. They burned her papers and notes from months of studying and teaching the kids.”

Cassandra felt her chest grow tense, hearing the experiences of Mages she had never thought to look twice at or interact with. She had always assumed she had heard it all: the oppression, the violence, the complaining she was unsympathetic to. Olivia’s candor was making her feel insecure in her beliefs.

“I have not been as attentive, but I have my reasons for keeping a distance. I think it best,” she pulled her legs around and tucked them under her, sitting taller as she reached for her wine.

“You and half of Thedas, Cassandra. Don’t you ever wonder if the Seekers’ choices in how to subdue Mages could have been done differently? If there is a cure for tranquility, then why not search it out? Why not explore that which has been so elusive, and led to so much cruelty?” Olivia’s passion was beginning to bleed through, a sign that she was feeling more comfortable with Cassandra, so much so that she did not have to constantly be agreeable and joyful.

“I have long contemplated such things, but, it is not simply up to me.”

“Spoken like an Andrastian,” she grinned as she shook her head. “These decisions are never up to one soul, but we name a singular Divine, have one ultimate chant, one wife of the Maker. ‘Tis a wonder, as you have said, that we get anything done.”

Cassandra was out of her element, mostly because she had underestimated Olivia’s politics. She had fooled herself into believing this one Mage did not harbor radical sentiments, and she had been proven misguided. Still, after so much time at Theia’s side, something in her had changed: she wasn’t as dismissive, nor was she wholeheartedly divergent from what she had to say. After all, she desired to reconstruct the Seekers and right past wrongs, herself.

“So, if you relinquished yourself to the Circle, why rebel against it? Why live a life of nomadism?” Cassandra wished to shift the subject back onto her, and not on abstract discourse that could possibly make the evening turn sour.

“Why not, when your people are being slaughtered like livestock?” Olivia shook her head once as she leaned towards her companion more now. “If your dearest friends asked you to run along with them, life a live of adventure, get what’s yours, wouldn’t you?”

“I would not think so, considering how precarious such a thing would be.”

“Oh, come now, you never itched for adventure just for the sake of it? Didn’t anyone ever invite you to do something wild, and your sheer adoration for them was enough to convince you?”

Cassandra was about to dismiss the question, but then a memory of her brother came alive in her mind’s eye. Antony, vivacious as always, telling her of his most recent excursion. Her younger voice asking to go with him next time, and his hand on her shoulder, comforting her that while it wouldn’t be this time, next time surely she would. That was one of the last times they had ever discussed it, before his death.

“I…cannot remember it, if it did happen,” she lied, looking at the fire and trying to reconcile her heartache with the hopeful moment she was in. Even after all this time, memories of her brother stung like an ice-ridden wind in the mountains, seeping into her skin and into her bones. She wondered at times if she would ever be truly over it, even after her training as a Seeker did so much to settle her grief.

Olivia watched the torn emotions play out in her eyes, and while she wanted to know what made her face betray her answer, she did not want to corner someone who seemed so easily defensive.

“Fair enough,” she lamented in return.

“I suppose we are not all so lucky to have the chance to follow where our hearts wish to go,” Cassandra finally said.

Olivia shrugged. “Perhaps, or maybe our hearts find other ways of getting the message across.”


	3. A Demonstration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dinner turns into a demonstration of certain talents; Olivia shows the Seeker a side of herself that has helped her survive all this time. Only, the reception of it is unlike anything she's experienced before.

The food had disappeared from the basket, as it had been several hours of nibbling, debating, sipping, and joking. The candlelight had begun to waver, as well, as most of them had become stout and melted where they were once tall and freshly lit. Still, both Cassandra and Olivia were far from done with the night. Down to the last inch of wine in the bottle, they both laid with feet closest to the fire, staring up at the rotating spine of stairs and hints of the stone ceiling way above their heads.

Cassandra, one hand on her abdomen and the other tucked underneath her head, had spent many nights abroad in this exact resting position, except looking up at stars or perhaps a tent roof. Their travels in the Inquisition felt endless: vast nights in the countryside, in unmapped terrain, hoping nothing would come crawling or stomping for their lives.

Meanwhile, Olivia rested both her hands on her stomach, long hair framing her face as if she was lying in a meadow somewhere, watching birds fly. Her contented face softened by the effects of wine, sleepiness, and wonder at just how the night had gone.

“An actual dragon,” she said, in awe.

“Yes, and do not let Varric distort the truth: I was not the only one to fight it.”

“Yes, but…a dragon? An entire dragon?” she smiled.

“Indeed. And now the Inquisitor has us hunting them like Antelope to please Iron Bull.”

Olivia smirked. “He is someone to please, I hear. Quite gregarious and sweet.”

“That is one way to explain it.”

There was a moment of quiet, wherein they marveled at the story the Seeker had just told: well, Olivia marveled at it, while Cassandra couldn’t believe she told it voluntarily, again. The first time was with the Inquisitor, back at Haven. Now, she seemed to be less ashamed of the story than she originally said she was.

Olivia rolled onto her side facing her friend, tucking her arm underneath her head and letting the other rest on her side. “Alright, your turn.”

Cassandra’s chin tilted in her direction, grinning everlastingly. “How does one charm a Chevalier into giving them all of their coinage, without murder or outright violence?”

Olivia’s brow raised, and she sucked on her teeth a bit, looking off into the distance as she contemplated how best to answer such an oversimplification. She rocked to-and-fro a little whilst the Seeker watched her loyally from her side of the blanket.

“I cannot really say. I can show you though!” she said, taking no time in hopping up to her feet in a flash. Cassandra experienced a bit of whiplash in being left alone on the floor. She quickly sat up and turned around to see Olivia jogging towards the study corner with the bookshelf and table, her gate loopy as she was wine tipsy.

“Olivia, what are you doing?” she asked after her, feeling hopeless in such an inquiry.

Olivia, not saying a word, dragged the wooden chair from the desk it was paired with, until it sat in the middle of the room all alone. She stepped away from it and held out her hand towards it in a guiding fashion.

“Come sit!” she said, before turning around and pulling her hair out of her face, collecting it to one shoulder in preparation for her tutelage. Cassandra waited for a bit, wondering just what she had gotten herself into, but she would humor her – the wine had also gotten to her a bit. She rose to her feet, feeling the slight dizziness from drinking, but she collected herself well enough to have a seat. She sat back in the chair, legs parted and spread like a man would be, one hand resting across her thigh.

“So?” she asked.

Olivia was pacing slowly, rolling her shoulders as if she were about to do gymnastics.

“Which persona would be best for you? Because it is all about finding the kind of personality one is most tempted by,” she said astutely, cracking her knuckles.

“Shouldn’t you be able to determine that without my telling you?” Cassandra grinned on one side of her mouth, entertained.

“Oh, come now, everyone has that one type of person that melts their pan grease. Do you like someone stiff and unforgiving?” she straightened her posture and put her hands on her hips as she paced, “or, do you want someone more elusive and coy?” she then folded her arms shyly across her chest, chin tilted as she glanced over her shoulder at the Seeker who seemed way in over her head, and enjoying it for once.

“How about this, you give me the persona you most enjoy performing, and I will say whether or not it is enough to convince me to render myself destitute.”

“Hah, Seeker, if it is enough to beguile you, you won’t have any room for a choice,” Olivia warned, before taking a breath. “Alright, my classic maneuver, which got us many a coin and meal back in my good days, was my soulful seductress move.”

“I…see,” Cassandra was curious as to what that entailed, but, she wasn’t about to deny her. Part of her was scared, another excited – maybe Olivia was onto something. She watched as the Mage woman scooted back onto a table facing her and up against the wall.

“Now then,” her voice was deeper, richer, than it had been the entire evening. The master was wearing her mask now, to be sure. “I would start the evening by wanting him to come to me, but not having the humility to do so and risk being rejected. I would do little things, like…” she then ran her fingers through her golden-hued hair, exposing her beautiful and angular jaw and neckline as she laid her head back. When she was done with that, she ran her hands down her waist and onto each thigh, spreading them apart.

“Then this,” she narrated, coupling her hands between her upper thighs, her skirts covering everything but beckoning for someone to reach up them. Cassandra could feel the intensifying heat in her cheeks, chest, and then…well, there was a first for everything.

“And then, just when he thinks he can dismiss me as some pub siren, I hop off whatever seat I’ve found for myself,” she slid off the table, knees and thighs first as she led with her hips in her dismount. She drew closer, one foot directly in front of the other as her hips sauntered. “I would interrupt whatever game of cards he’s currently losing, and feeling down on his pride. So much so, that what he needs is a good woman,” she tucked her chin close to her neck, her hazel eyes simmering with lustful temptation, “to set you straight on just how powerful…” she came to stand directly in front of Cassandra, one leg lifting and going forward between Cassandra’s knees, “and desired he is.”

Cassandra did not turn her eyes away from Olivia’s the entire time, much as she wanted to scan every inch of her performing body and soak the experience in. It was her eyes – the way they had their own act going, their own seduction process – that enraptured her. It made her want to stand up and push her back up against the table, just to see all of their colors…an make her close them.

Olivia rolled her head back, her chin and nose the path her eyes followed in staring back down at her, a sly smile on her lips.

“When the man hungers for some attention, I give him what he wants all up front at first, so he feels accomplished with little trouble.”

She then stepped to the side, and gracefully sat herself down across Cassandra’s muscular thigh, her nimble weight pressing against her skin that was without armor and metal to protect her now. Olivia reached an arm over Cassandra’s shoulder, pulling herself in, her chest to the Seeker’s eye-level as she arched her back.

“You see, what men want is someone to care for, even if it means saving them from their own wrath. I am all about being cared for, when it gets me what I want,” she smirked, leaning upright. Her hands went to the front corset knot of her dress bodice, and went to work. Untying the top bow, she then gripped at the loosened edges of the bustle and pulled then apart, exposing more cleavage and skin, her dress sleeves slipping down off her shoulders. The heart shape of her shoulders and chest was lush and inviting for touch.

Cassandra was caught without a prayer, and all verses she had memorized had suddenly gone quiet. The Maker could have knocked on the door behind her for all she knew, and she wouldn’t be aware of any interruption. The proximity of the visuals she was observing were suffocating in the most exhilarating way, something she had never experienced before, something she thought no woman was ever capable of invoking in her.

“Then,” Olivia said in a more hushed tone, now, “he wants more, after a while. He wants to touch, grab, even tickle if he’s feeling…artistic.” Her hands snuck their grip onto Cassandra’s, and pulled them to rest on the curvature of her lower waist, connecting to the suppleness of her hips when seated on someone’s lap. Cassandra was timid at first, but eventually, she let them press down, justifying it by telling herself she was surely being supportive and not gratifying her own selfish tastes.

“That’s the golden moment, when everything starts feeling like romance, like seduction. He’s about to fall in love, if only for a night,” her lips hovered closer to Cassandra’s as she gazed down at her, one eyebrow raised in enhanced allure.

Cassandra felt Olivia’s chest and shoulders bearing into hers, slowly and with measured grace. She welcomed it without hesitation, even as her face said she was a goner for sense.

For a stolen moment, Olivia and Cassandra’s eyes locked on each other, and they stayed like that. Olivia, slowly lowering her mouth to hers, lips parted with the invitation. Cassandra tilted her chin upwards ever so discretely, and as she did so, her eyelids narrowed in anticipation of their closing for a kiss.

Then, she felt Olivia stop her advance. In a blink, she had lost track of the hand she was sure was resting on her chest a second ago. It was anywhere but there, though, and in fact it had been hard at work.

Olivia pulled away suddenly, and her embrace was replaced with the horizontal edge of Cassandra’s dagger she had attached in her underbelt. She may have come casual that night, but she did not come unprepared.

Her eyes widened a bit, feeling the instinctive need to defeat her adversary in the moment. It took a substantial amount of self-control not to counter her, not to toss her to the floor and kick her. Warriors did not hesitate with protecting their own lives, especially when their egos were bruised from having let someone get the best of them. Beyond her internal struggle, there was Olivia, eyeing her with a trained coldness, her smile vanished.

She remained quiet, waiting for Cassandra to say something, do something, to correct her. The dagger edge grazing on Cassandra’s throat as the Seeker swallowed a pitiful amount of spit.

“What about being committed to no bloodshed?” Cassandra’s eyes recalculated their staring, and she quieted her nerves just enough. Her hands were at her sides, open-palmed and in the air, as if she were surrendering.

Olivia smirked without humor. “You think any Chevalier wants to die at the hands of a Harlot? He’d rather give a Coffer’s worth of sovereigns than be found filleted with his own dagger. I take the purse and run, he can lie about his fumblings, and our business is done.”

“In public, in front of witnesses?”

“Never. I always get them alone.”

“And what if he protests? Tries to overpower you?”

Olivia swiveled the blade between her fingers as she retracted it, her face smug. She then tossed it in the air, and as it spun, she caught it by the handle as it faced downward towards Cassandra’s crotch.

“Then I go for something he’d miss more than his ability to breathe.”

Cassandra felt the pointed tip of the blade rest just under her navel – Olivia didn’t care so much about anatomical accuracy as she cared about making sure the point was across. The Seeker’s eyes flickered between the dagger and Olivia’s face. She reached an arm back to rest on the back of her chair.

“Is this where I ask that you remove the mask, and return to being the Olivia I knew before this demonstration?” It had hardly been ten minutes, and she already craved the sweetness and personable Olivia she had spent all night with. This Olivia – a hardened and calculating professional – seemed to ache with pain and malice unhealed and festered. She was both mechanical and animalistic, if that made any sense in one person.

Then, a relief: Olivia’s grin returned, and her eyes warmed again in their expression. She withdrew the dagger again, holding it across her lap, as she softened her posture, still remaining seated on Cassandra’s lap.

“Lesson learned: do not let a random woman who looks like she’s hungry for something other than supper, sit on your lap,” she said, an injection of whimsical humor now in her voice. She shrugged, and leaned away so as to get off of her companion’s lap. She turned her head away in doing so, which is why when she felt a hand land flat across her waist, stopping her, she was caught off guard.

She turned back again to find Cassandra, grinning in an off-setting way: like she was endeared by something sweet, and not the sexily lethal demonstration Olivia had just given. Her brow furrowed as she looked at her, as if to ask what was it that made her feel compelled to keep her there.

“Olivia,” Cassandra said low, her hand reaching up and caressing her cheek. She traced her touch down the angle of her jawline, to under her ear, the tips of her fingers intertwining with strands of her hair. Her skin danced with nervousness under her touch.

Olivia reacted to the sensation of someone kind, someone selfless, and it made her ache. She rolled her eyes shut, feeling something so alien in nature: safety in being touched first. The hunger she never knew she had deep in her gut. Her eyes remained closed as she felt her hand go down her neck, goosebumps appearing in waves across her arms and shoulders. Slowly, Cassandra’s hand receded down to her chest, along her collar bone, the slight chill in her contact sending a shiver down both their spines with the potential of it. The boldness.

She absentmindedly bit her lip when her hand inched towards her cleavage, but just when she expected some fondling or grabbing to ensue, the hand pulled away, resting instead on her upper arm.

Her eyes slid open, and she exhaled. “Yes?” she breathed, her voice weak.

“You do not have to run from me,” the Seeker replied, hushed and solemn.

 

Cassandra, having watched her melt at the slightest feel of authentic affection, was emboldened. Even if it was not specifically her Olivia hungered for, she knew that her theory had proven somewhat correct: Oliva hadn’t been loved right, not the way she always deserved. Perhaps, if she were to know once and for all whether or not loving women was something she was capable of, she would try now. If she was worth her weight in salt, she would do right by this human being who had inspired her.

Olivia, in return, locked eyes on hers with an insecure hopefulness.

“No one…” she stopped herself.

Cassandra tilted her head a bit. “No one what?”

Olivia held her breath, asking herself whether or not she would want to admit such a pitiful thing. Here, in this moment, she felt like any reckless act was possible. Maybe now, maybe once and for all, she would give in.

“No one has ever touched me like that before.”

Cassandra smirked softly, her smile inviting and empathetic. “I can do it again, if you would like.”

Olivia’s voice cracked when she responded. Nodding her head once, she gulped.

“Please.”

And with that, the Seeker claimed her confession.


	4. Confessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of their first sexual encounter prompts some more honest and less graceful conversations between Olivia and Cassandra. Olivia is honest about what motivates her embargo on love.

“It is quite impressive,” Olivia remarked, sitting upright on her folded knees and holding Cassandra’s greatsword across her lap. She had one cotton sheet from the bed tucked under her arms so as to feel a touch less exposed in the early morning chill.

“You know Theia would laugh endlessly if I told her you brought your weaponry into bed with you,” she snickered, eyes peering back at her bedmate.

Cassandra had sprawled diagonally across the upper half of the bed, lying on her side with one arm holding her head up, the other hand resting on the sheets in front of her chest. She did not bother with covering herself; the moonlight translucency of her bedroom with its open air windows was modest enough for her. She watched as Olivia traced her gentle hands across the broad blade, and smirked.

“I thought it only fair, considering you almost impaled me on it. That is the last time I leave my sword on my bed.”

Olivia blushed, feeling a touch bashful about how rambunctious she had been earlier. Turns out, making out like your air supply depended on it as you stumbled up to the bedchambers for the higher-ranking allies of the Inquisition, using the taller of you to burst through the door first, before allowing yourself a touch of gumption and pushing said taller person onto her own bed, only to hear a sharp wince as her back fell onto her unsheathed sword blade, was not how she would have liked things to go. But that was how they unfolded – and the two women redeemed the auspicious start in spades.

“You know I did not mean for that to happen. Besides, what warrior leaves their sword unsheathed? Do you want it to age or become damaged prematurely?” she shook her head, eyeing the engraving on hilt.

“I did not think I was inviting a weaponry master into my bedchambers. Surely if I had known, I would have made the appropriate arrangements,” a chuckle rested in Cassandra’s throat.

“I am no such thing! My Father had a greatsword like this one, from his days in the war. He was a proficient fighter, but he didn’t have the heart to do it all of his life. He kept his one relic from his service on the mantle. He did not even keep his armor. He said a proper champion knows how to work without it,” she smiled, remembering her Father’s soft, aged face in her memories of long ago.

“I respect your Father’s memory, but I would not advise testing his advice any time soon,” Cassandra grinned.

“Of course not, silly, that was not the point he was trying to make. Father believed in diplomacy, in peace. He said if you have a cause worth fighting for, you find ways to achieve it without stooping to the level of the evils you are trying to combat. He was always puzzling to me as a child, the way he talked. I hardly understood a word, until it was much too late for me to ask him more questions.”

“He sounded like a great man,” Cassandra adjusted her hand under her chin, relishing the vulnerability of the moment they were in. Olivia had not ceased to be engrossing in the hours and hours they had spent talking; she seemed so easygoing, but when you scratched the surface, you quickly learned she had nothing but thoughts and musings on anything under the sun. Her scholarly mind was elusive, but it was there. Olivia was also the first person to ever dare to call Seeker Pentaghast silly, and astonishingly, Cassandra was not perturbed by it.

“He was,” she took hold of the sword grip and raised it upwards, turning it so it was now vertical in front of her chest and face. She gazed at her distorted reflection in its facade, its hefty weight causing her to biceps to constrict. She then placed her flat palm on the side of it – her hand was thinner in width than the blade was – and she sighed lightly.

“You have thoughts, I can tell,” Cassandra cooed, her stern voice finding its softest version in order to disarm.

“I do. I…” she lowered the sword, holding it with two hands as if she were bestowing it onto someone. She leaned over and placed it on the trunk at the foot of Cassandra’s bed, ensuring its gentle transfer from her hands to its resting place. “I do not know what you want with me, Seeker,” she turned and faced her now, hands fiddling with tousled bedsheets in her lap.

“You are hardly an object, Olivia. I do not wish to do anything with you without your consent,” Cassandra replied, pulling herself up so as to sit on her hip.

“I am not shallow, Cassandra. I meant…I don’t quite follow how someone like you becomes enraptured with someone like me.”

“You have a low opinion of yourself to wonder such a question,” Cassandra cautioned.

“A Mage knows better than to insist that the world looks upon her with benevolent praise at all hours of the day, especially one like me, who has garnered the reputation that she has. I thought you didn’t even like being in the company of women. Why change all your rules just for a night of reckless abandon?”

Cassandra let silence linger in the air as she looked off to the side, chewing on her questioning with sincere concern. The question was one she would have for herself, too, if she could reflect from the outside: why this, and why now? Had her mind and heart really changed so much since the Conclave? Cassandra was not the person people would look to for flexibility. She was the steadfast Seeker, the one who pursued when others lost faith. It was her pride, her sense of identity in this world. As she returned her gaze to Olivia, who’s curious and melancholic face was partially illuminated by the window moonlight, she felt her chest shudder with reckoning.

“I am not quite sure how best to answer that. I only know that since that day you mounted my horse, I have been hungering to understand who you are and what drives you.”

“So,” Olivia ran a hand through her knotted hair, “this was you simply satiating a hunger to know the unknown?”

“Yes and no. There is more, I am just unsure how to describe it without sounding foolish.”

Olivia bit the side of her cheek, rolling her shoulders after the hour or so of furious exertion they had experienced together. It was clumsy, hungry, and dramatic – it was sensory overload. It was magnificent.

“I am fine with whatever you feel, just as long as you do not love me,” Olivia boldly asserted, her endearing voice a contrast to her harshness in diction.

Cassandra’s brow lowered, and she pulled herself back so as to sit up against the headboard. She anchored one elbow on her raised knee. This was the polar opposite reaction she had predicted to come after such an encounter. The script had been flipped in the blink of an eye.

“And why, exactly, am I prohibited from loving you?”

“Because love is a farce, Cassandra, invented to ensnare women like me into dreams that do not come to pass for us. It is the horizon line that is never traversed. I am not made for it, only for everything before its fatal misstep.”

“That is the most absurd thing I have ever heard,” Cassandra’s flare for argument became front-and-center. “I saw the way you looked when I first touched your skin. You are hardly a skeptic when it comes to such things.”

“Being seduced and being in love are not the same, though they feel similar in consequence. ‘Tis but another dangerous grey area I must avoid.”

“Olivia,” Cassandra pulled away from the wall, crawling a bit towards her. She curved her legs underneath her seat as she was not within a foot of the blonde woman who was haunting her waking and sleeping thoughts now.

“I may not be able to promise it now, but that does not mean that I do not have a fondness for you that could…grow, into something meaningful.”

“Then I politely ask for you to curtail it now, or else we should stop ourselves before it is too late to salvage a friendship,” Olivia shook her head once, her lips pursing with increased anxiety.

“Is that truly what you want?”

“It is not about what I want, Seeker,” she opted for her title now, and not her name, “it is about what is good for me. I am not someone who knows how to love, only beguile, and be kept in a gilded cage to look pretty for guests. My mind is the best kept secret in Montsimmard, and I prefer it that way. Love would lead to more foolishness for me than I can afford.”

Olivia remembered saying something similar, back when Theia had first come to see her at the Ferndale estate. The way Theia pleaded with her to remember who she once was, and what she was capable of, lingered in her heart for weeks afterward. Now, she was giving the same testimony, only to someone she found she actually risked falling for in the most inconvenient of ways. It was a most perilous dance of all, and she had taken great care to avoid it for years on end. Now, it was staring her in the face, with warm hazel eyes, a discerning brow, and cheekbones that could slice a mountain in half. This was not the great doom she had expected it to be.

“I cannot believe I am hearing this from the same woman who was daydreaming plans to challenge age-old theories on Darkspawn deterrent and spellcasting. Olivia, you are not in some parlor in Montsimmard, you are here with the Inquisition. Some of the most talented and capable minds are here in these halls, working to save the world as we know it. Why can you not at last be free to share what you are capable of?”

Olivia had begun to form tears in her eyes, hearing the woman who had stolen her free thoughts from her plead her case. Suddenly, she turned around, reaching and securing a forceful grip on the greatsword she had just held like a piece of fragile glass. Now, it may as well be a block of wood. Whipping back around to face Cassandra, she held the sword roughly in her hand, the other holding the upper half of the heavy sword with an open palm.

“Because, Cassandra, the same sword you carry with you: this one, right here in my poised and weak hands, the same kind that my Father wielded and slaughtered with. The one you slaughter with now? It looks exactly like the ones that were held to my throat when we were discovered out in the countryside by rogue Templars, Bandits, and Bounty Hunters alike. Weapons are cheap, but they are traumatizing, and I have found my hide under too many sharp edges to risk it for something I was born to manipulate and spin into a Game player’s resource.” She then tossed it sideways onto Cassandra’s lap.

Cassandra felt the hefty weight of her weapon on her lap now as she braced for its landing. Grabbing the grip of it, she eyed the weapon that had bent and contoured to her two-handed wielding of it, clean even after slashing through so many adversaries in the field. Then, her eyes scanned across the blade, which felt dormant for the amount of violence it was normally exposed for.

“Olivia,” she insisted, setting the sword off to the side, and with her freed hands taking hold of hers. “These hands are anything but weak. They make impossible things occur, they have the potential to change the nature of our history. Do not undervalue them because of the men and women who have told you they are worthless. Such people are despicable, and below you.”

Olivia stared at their hands, an eyebrow slightly raised as she felt the tears gain momentum in her eyes. Her lips parted. Cassandra’s hands were coarse, scarred, and calloused – but they were gentle. She had never known such a considerate and reverent touch in a lover before. The way she had held her, the way she braced against her weight, as if she would rather fall upon the sword beside them than leave so much as a bruise on her for the morning light to discover. It was intoxicating.

“Cassandra, please” she said, her eyes locking on hers, “I’m not the invincible mind you think I am. I’m afraid every day of my life. I’m terrified that I will wake up and this will be all a dream, that I will be laying on cold, wooded ground, and some shadows will come out of the tree line. I am afraid that my friends are not truly safe, but they are out there, somewhere, dying or being hunted. I have nightmares where they bleed out in front of me, and I am nothing but a pretty face to soothe their last visions of life. If it is anything I am dreading more than falling asleep and into that again…”

Olivia stuttered, her eyes fluttering open and shut, a tear falling down her cheek. She placed a hand now on Cassandra’s cheek, her thumb lightly stroking the scar coming up along her cheekbone.

“What is it?” Cassandra whispered, leaning into her more.

Olivia inhaled. “I am terrified that your face will join them, in my nightmares, in my terrors, that you will be the one bleeding out in front of my feet, and I will be unable to save you. I cannot fear the risk of losing you. I already…have…” her voice began to crack severely, and she closed her eyes harshly. She succumbed to the weeping that had been ebbing in her throat, waiting for release.

Cassandra felt the instinct and acted upon it: reaching a strong arm and looping it around Olivia’s bare shoulders, she pulled her in and held her close. She felt her face find its niche against her collar bone, face fidgeting with the momentum of her crying. So, this is what Cole had been cryptically referring to: she was sour taste of jewelry on the tongue, someone with a hardened core underneath all the prolific softness. It was heartbreaking and moving to witness.

Olivia curled herself into a ball almost, giving into the protectiveness of her hold. The only other person she had ever allowed to touch her when she wept was Theia, another protective and loyal soul. Many nights after men had had their way with her, or if she was treated unkindly and had to be rescued by her companions, she would cry for her foolishness to her. Theia never chastised her, even if she had to risk her life to save her. She only ever said it was alright, and to not worry about the danger.

The danger never went away, though, it simply waited for its turn, like a scavenging animal.

Cassandra felt different underneath her than her friends did. She was muscular, broad, and felt unused to such intimate exchanges of affection. The magic in her bones didn’t converse with any in her body, instead it was like being placed in warm, still bathwater all alone. There was something honest in her that she felt attracted to. They remained like this for a resonating moment in time, where it felt as though everything else stood still out of respect for Olivia’s sorrow. The Seeker was bad at endearing words, but she was good at ensuring safety in the expression of authentic emotions.

Something in Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast’s austere soul wanted to swear out loud that for as long as she could, she would ensure no unworthy human would have the privilege of touching her. But, Olivia needed to find her own source of strength, instead of finding someone else to provide theirs as an enveloping force.

\--

Eventually, her sobbing had subsided into soaked stillness. There was an apology, followed by a refusal to accept such a thing for simply being overcome by honest feelings. They laid flat on the bed now, Cassandra having an arm wrapped around Olivia’s shoulder as she lay on her stomach with her cheek resting on her lover’s abdomen. She faced away from her, eyes gazing absentmindedly towards the wall, noticing the unbothered dresser and untouched clean clothes. She was listening to her breathe while she stared at the assemblage of belongings, painting a story for her eyes.

The way her armor was organized and ready for the morning dressing ritual. It was calming, to see so many still objects, steadfast and temperate like the person who they belonged to.

“Are you asleep?” she whispered, staying still.

“No, but would that stop you from voicing your concerns?” Cassandra’s louder and more gravelly voice gave away her fatigue. She had been laying there with her eyes closed for some time, but something about having someone else beside her had sent her mind into spinning thoughts and questions. Sleep, consequently, was not very amenable.

“I noticed the books on the table in the corner. I didn’t know you read outside of Inquisition reports,” Olivia muttered, feeling the warmth of Cassandra’s body underneath her, having absolutely melted into its feel.

“Really? Everyone teases me endlessly about it, ever since the Inquisitor and Varric exposed my reading of his serials.”

A smirk emanated from her bedmate. “You are full of surprises, you know that?” she looked up and rest her chin on her, eyes blinking sweetly as she honed in on the sight of Cassandra looking relaxed and contented to be in one space and time for once.

“I would have suggested you to be the one full of surprises, out of the both of us,” Cassandra was touched, deep down, at such a compliment. It made her feel like she could be something different besides the stereotype that shadowed her every day. She could be surprising, romantic, and impulsive. She could surprise someone with wine, dinner, and candles, for a change.

Olivia scrunched her lips to one side, her eyes narrowing with amusement. “Everyone simply underestimates me, which is why they are always so shocked when I do things differently from what they expect.”

“What would you have people understand you to be, then, if you could decide?”

Olivia paused. No one had every truly stopped and asked her such a question, and it saddened her that she did not have one clear-cut, ambitious answer to give. Theia and Veronica were always so assured in their convictions, even when they were misguided or temperamental. Olivia was appeasing on the surface, never one to cause conflict, but amend it.

“I want…I want people to look at me and know I am as kind as I am strong. I…want to inspire. I want to create new and wonderful things, and have them be of use to a wide number of people, not just you or I, or someone who is fit to be in an Inquisition’s uniform: everyday people who have problems, and concerns, and hopes for the future. I want women to hope that their daughters could grow up and be like me…” her thoughts trailed, winding in and out of turns in her mind. Olivia wanted a lot of things, and sometimes that was most audacious part about her. People took for granted that she was entertained because she was entertaining.

Cassandra listened to her, admiring her and falling for her at the same time. She spoke with such heartfelt optimism, even when she knew her chest ached from crying, and she was fearful of what the morning would bring.

“Such things are quite possible, provided the world is not consumed in the wrath of a corrupted Tevinter Magister and his army of red Templars. Then, I certainly think you will have all the potential to make these goals come to fruition.”

Olivia giggled. “Are you always so motivational?”

“I am realistic. Whether than is distressing or encouraging, is not my place to dictate unto others.”

Olivia pushed herself upwards, and, swinging a leg across Cassandra’s hips, straddled the Seeker like she had hours before when a very different matter of “motivation” was at hand. She cradled Cassandra’s rib cage in her hands as she settled into her position. The Seeker groaned a bit, blinking her eyes awake as she felt her crawl on top of her.

“I am afraid if we were to go again, we run the risk of being a wake-up call to everyone nearby,” she mumbled, placing a hand on Olivia’s thigh.

“Why not? It would sure be good for morale to hear someone praying to the Maker for mercy so early in the dawn.”

“You mock me? After you nearly broke—“

Olivia’s throat bubbled quickly into laughter that became too loud for her to feel innocent doing so, and she immediately collapsed into the Seeker’s arms, hiding her face in the crook of her shoulder and the plush pillow. Hearing her smothered laughing as she remembered her haphazard accident involving the headboard and the painting on the wall, Cassandra decided not to finish her sentence. She grinned, though, feeling the infectious energy Olivia gave off. 

“You are a marvel, truly,” Cassandra chuckled, an arm wrapping around the back of her waist.

Eventually, Olivia calmed down, but remained settled into her place on top of Cassandra and wrapped up in her hold. Resting a hand on her chest and her head against the side of her neck, she smiled to herself.

“Perhaps we should sleep now, before everyone can tell by the look of our sleepless eyes that we are guilty of something most scandalous,” she whispered.

“Is it sleep if you merely discuss it but do not attempt it?” Cassandra was growing impatient, the desire to sleep overriding her desire to stay awake and hear all of the wild thoughts Olivia would say out loud. At that, Olivia smirked and lightly pinched at Cassandra’s skin, making her flinch ever-so-slightly at the sensation.

“Olivia,” she groaned.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist.” Her voice turned into honey again. She took one last glance up at Cassandra’s face, with her closed eyes and relaxed mouth. The glee in the moment was short-lived, as the bittersweet ache in her chest returned to her. She was in deep, and it was grading on her anxiety. Still, in her arms, it felt as though she was untouchable to any and all evils the world had to offer.

Perhaps, for one night, she would be safe and really believe it.

One last token of goodnight, as she pressed her lips to Cassandra’s neck, lingering as she kissed her skin. Not expecting an acknowledgement, she was pleasantly surprised to feel Cassandra’s arm tighten its hold on her. The warmth of her grasp relaxed her troubled mind, and, closing her eyes, she was finally greeted by sleep.

A few hours of it was better than none at all.

\--

When dawn had just broke within the hour, making the watercolor sky and air gently frost-kiss the Fortress walls and Battlements, Olivia woke up alone. Used to such things during her prolific career, it felt as natural as anything: curling and stretching in her side of the bed, she rolled onto her back and uncovered her head out from under the pillow. Seeing no one around, and the Seeker’s armor and sword gone, she assumed Cassandra had done her part to keep up her end of the deal: no attachments that would be too damaging to revoke or reverse.

Olivia rubbed her face as she sat up, feeling slightly sore in her arms and legs from the night before. It took a lot to make her nimble body feel strained, but perhaps between the sex and the crying, she had over-exerted just a bit.

Then, in the midst of her waking, a discoloration in the pale and humble bedsheets caught her eye. She realized it wasn’t a stain, but an object, and she promptly crawled over to it as it sat on the edge of the bed. She moved her hair out of her face and saw that it was a bottle, unopened and full of a dark liquid. Around the cap, there was a flower with its stem wrapped around, similar to the kind the children played with in her hair all those nights before at the Wedding. She didn’t think about it, but she found herself grinning like a curious fool.

Opening the bottle lid, she lightly held it under her nose – Olivia could tell most elixirs and potions from such a sense – and her brow furrowed as she quickly identified this one’s identity. It was a rejuvenation potion, the kind both warriors and mages depended upon to recover from exertion, muscle strain, and fatigue. Oh, this was a bold Seeker, she thought to herself, to insist that she would need one. But, feeling the muscles between her shoulder blades singe with stiffness, she thought that perhaps it was needed after all. It could also help with her emotional exhaustion, which may have been what Cassandra was aiming for.

Her eyes gazing downward, she found a small scrap of parchment that had been ripped from a sheet. Uncrinkling it with her thumb and index finger, there was the most straight-forward and un-decorative handwriting:

“Take care of yourself – and perhaps later you can provide me with a critique of this potion’s efficiency. – C”

Olivia smiled, stifling a giggle as she shook her head in wonder. What a crafty woman, she had to admit. Lingering in the moment a bit longer, she looked out the window now and wondered just what she had gotten herself into. Cassandra was everything she had ever been trained to look for in a suitor, and yet she felt undeserving: the ways in which they had been brought together, as if some undercurrent of magic had been pushing their bodies into one another, confused her. They appeared to be antithetical personalities, and yet, she couldn’t remember the last time someone looked at her and made her feel truly seen. Perhaps that was her own fault as much as it was the world’s.

Her contemplation was sharply interrupted by the sound of perturbed banging on the door.

“Seeker! What have you done with my sparring straw men!?” Cullen grumbled loudly from outside the door – clearly a morning person out of habitual necessity, than personal agreeableness.

Olivia fidgeted, trying to figure out just where her clothes went. Sliding off the bed and gracefully prancing around so as to not bring attention to any noise, she could find nothing but Cassandra’s smallclothes top she left over her chair.

“Seeker, dammit! You can’t just do what you wish with our training supplies. The smell was not worth wasting good equipment!”

Olivia sighed fast, grabbing the top and slipping it over her shoulders. It was long in the torso, enough to make a little dress over her petite frame, the shoulder sliding off at one side. She tightened and tied the corset string at the neckline to make it more modest, but, it was a partially lost cause. She then rushed to the door, fingers combing through her hair as she tried to make herself a little more decent.

Opening the door, she saw a Commander ready to attack like a badger almost. Turning to face whoever was at the door, he was about to argue his head off. Then, his face dropped, as he saw the blonde Mage from the study Tower – the one who always teased him, he believed, by dusting off flower petals from the window when he stood below on the grounds – grinning and leaning against the door like she was ready to tease him some more.

“I—Oh, Maker, ugh,” he growled, turning away and rubbing his tired eyes.

“Commander, ‘tis a beautiful morning, isn’t it?” she grinned.

“Oliv---Olivia, isn’t that your name?” he asked, trying to retain a semblance of cordiality and gentility. Such things were near impossible to find this early in the morning.

“Yes, it is. I’m afraid it’s the only name you’ll find here, the Seeker has already risen and gone out to get her day started.”

“I assume you would know, then,” he muttered, placing his hands on his hips as he turned to the side.

Olivia chuckled sweetly under her breath, deflecting the inadvertent slight the Commander clearly was too preoccupied to know of.

“Yes, Commander, I do know a great many things.”

“Then I don’t suppose you’d know where she has gone? I have some important business to straighten out with her.”

“I heard, you almost brought the snow on the mountain down!” she chimed, “Alas, however, she hath escaped my grasp before I could determine such things.”

“That makes one of us, then, when it comes to you “Foxes,” he sighed, lamenting on just how much Skyhold seemed to turn into a Mage’s seductress paradise ever since the Inquisitor’s former traveling partners all came out of the woodwork. Their nicknames, their code words, and their penchant for trouble all added more grey hairs to his head than he expected. Olivia proved the most benign in nature, though, at least he thought. Now, she may as well be as much of an inconvenience as the other two.

“Commander, we prefer Vixens after we’ve made an erotic conquest. Perhaps if you were successful in your attempts with Veronica, you would know. Now, have a good morning. If you ever wish for a stronger morning tea, let me know, I can put together a recipe that will have your stockings burning off by breakfast,” she smirked as she shut the door on him slowly but confidently.

Turning away from the door, she giggled to herself as she returned to the bedside, grabbing the elixir bottle and popping the cap off. Taking a swift gulp of it, she felt the flower tickle her cheek, and it made her nose crinkle just a bit. Taking a second to swallow, she looked around the room, emboldened now by the daybreak and the affection she was being propositioned with: the affection of a Seeker, of a woman, unlike anyone she had ever known.

She could get used to this.


	5. A Proposal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chance Olivia has worked for years to achieve lays itself out before her; only this time, she has reasons to not welcome it. Her choices create conflict between her and the woman she's begun to fall for.

“She cannot be serious!” Olivia yelled, tossing the letter down onto the couch cushion beside her. She began to pace, hands on her sides as she tried to level her breathing. This was preposterous, absolutely insane! Had Lady Adalia been inhaling the ingredients she had been sending, with explicit instructions not to breathe in directly?

“We both know Orlesians have a flare for…creative solutions to problems,” Theia huffed, crossing her leg over the other. “How do you suppose you will navigate this one?”

“I cannot, I will not marry her! This is ludicrous. She is over a decade my senior, and I am merely her embellished servant! She is committing social suicide by doing this!”

Theia shook her head, lips pursing as she felt sympathy for her friend. “I spoke with Josephine about this, before calling you here. She says such second marriages are uncommon, but not unheard of, especially after an established marriage ends with the man dying first. She can marry whomever she wishes now, she has a secured Estate.”

“Lady Adalia has no business marrying me. I have no fortune, nothing but a social reputation to my name.”

“You are beloved in most circles in Orlesian nobility. You have heightened her social capital since joining her house. Perhaps she wishes to secure that, in anticipation of future goals.”

“Theia,” Olivia approached her desk, setting down the letter in front of her, “Surely you can intervene, insist that I be conscripted somehow, or tell her that I am too ill to be traveling now.”

“Olivia, I risk an alliance by refusing her. If you are to dig your way out of this, it has to be via your own words and writing. I thought this was your goal: to secure comfort and seclusion so as to escape the weariness of a rogue’s lifestyle? What has changed for you?”

Olivia took a step back from the table as her arms folded. She suddenly realized she was letting onto a secret she did not wish to disclose: a secret that was every late night, every early morning, sometimes throughout the day, and definitely after supper, a secret that had been growing on her more than she wanted to say.

“I…I have not changed my goals. I merely am attached to my workload here. That is all. I am sorry, Theia, for causing a ruckus.”

“You have caused no ruckus, Olivia, and surely if you did I would truly have cause for concern. I know you can handle yourself in any situation. If this isn’t what you want, then say so. My hands are tied in diplomatic concerns.”

“So, you cannot do anything on my behalf?”

“I can offer nothing except commending you for your service to the Inquisition, and perhaps passively asserting that your place here is vital to us. I doubt, with all of this, that she will give into such a flippant response.”

Olivia sighed, resting a hand under her chin and turning to look at the fire. She was confused and pinned to a corner. Theia was right: she had strived for this kind of arrangement since they left the Circle, since she first started understanding that Orlais was not a place of whimsical fairytales. She had fought tooth and nail to gain the life she led, even as it caged her from the inside out. If she were to reject Lady Adalia’s proposal, it would mean throwing a year’s worth of dedication away into the fire.

But, then there was her. There was the Seeker who was encroaching on her heart. What was she to say to her? Sorry, it’s been so much fun, but, I have to go be a Lady now. How could she live with herself after that?

“I knew this was all too good to last. I should have taken better precaution,” Olivia admitted out loud, the soreness in her voice alluding to many matters, and not just the one of her working there.

“Has…has something happened, to make you so upset?” Theia cautiously questioned, looking up from her stacks of correspondences. She feared that, with the rumors beginning to swirl, that something had indeed taken place between two of her closest companions. Though, no hard-facts or evidence had been tracked down: just a few witnessed transpirations, greetings, and a mysterious sighting of a blonde woman wearing a Seeker’s smallclothes top by a window.

“No, not anything you should be concerned about my friend,” Olivia sighed, rubbing her own arms as she felt the chilled breeze enter the room from the balcony. Making her way for the stairs, she heard Theia speak one last time.

“Olivia, whatever you choose, know that you deserve all the happiness the world has to offer, and then some.”

Olivia grinned, feeling touched by her friend’s words. “Thank you, Theia. The sentiment is mutual.”

\--

She felt like the entire journey from Theia’s chambers to the tower was a blur, but when she was finally between the four walls of what she considered her sanctuary, Olivia threw herself into her work. Measuring powders, taking stock of inventory, organizing raw ingredients, all of it was fair game to her busy hands. The other few Mages that were spending their days in the tower felt as though she was generating her own atmosphere, the way she buzzed and hurried from corner to corner. Every ten minutes or so, she would huff, grunt, or groan, as if she was arguing with a voice inside her head.

Perhaps a lover’s quarrel, some of them wondered without saying.

The early evening crept up on her like a sly brush animal would a hare, and she knew Cassandra would either come calling or expect her to come to her chambers after supper. Olivia paced the floor, her workspace the picture perfect scene of a Mage’s life in order, whilst her actual reality was in tatters.

What to do, what to do, what to do. What was there to do? Could she toss everything up in the air and hope something would stick? No, she had to make a concise decision and stick to it. Lady Adalia would be expecting a response within a day or two, and it would have to be a pretty persuasive one if she was not to send herself back to Montsimmard.

Olivia felt as though the fortress walls would cave in on her, and crush her for good. Maybe it would be simpler that way, with no need to worry about tomorrow, or having to return to the hills and nauseating airs of Montsimmard. Growing stir crazy, she saw that the narrow lining of the daylight separating the land from the night sky was disappearing. Supper must be underway, and with that, Cassandra’s anticipation of her visit. She had ruminated on the issue for hours and no one solution had become clearer to her.

She returned to her own shared quarters to change into a cleaner dress, one she did not wear whilst overhauling all of her supplies and materials, wiping and dusting using the skirts all day. She elected for a long-sleeve, black, linen dress with an empire waistline and billowy, crinkled fabric for the skirts. It was the kind of dress one would love to wear whilst walking on a beach somewhere, or on the docks of some romantic port city. The black color was the only thing that spoke to her own personal tastes: the girl who wore embellished gold gowns all day, every day, always longed to wear the most depressing and uneventful color.

When no one would miss her, she made her way through the Skyhold hallways and walkways to her lover’s chambers. She had her hair swept up off of her shoulders, clipped with a gold ornamental firefly pin she had gotten as a gift from some generous nobleman at a soiree. It was one of the few gifts she had gotten in her tenure that wasn’t overly gaudy.

She didn’t bother knocking at this point in their relationship, whatever that relationship would be categorized as. Slipping in through the door, she found Cassandra hunched in her desk chair, her breastplate on her knee as she polished it clean. It was a routine ritual that Olivia had come to expect of her every night they spent together; she would protest if she were any other woman, but, knowing the peace of mind the Seeker got from it, she would happily sit somewhere and await her hands to be free to hold her and not her armor.

“Hello,” Olivia said calmly, her fingertips gently feeling her dress skirt slip in and out of their grip as she made her way over.

Cassandra kept polishing, but looked up to see the woman who had kept her bed warm at night saunter her way over, her eyes looking as though she had been spinning with thoughts to the point of exhaustion.

“You have come early. Did you not go to dinner in the Hall?” Cassandra asked, resisting the instinct to smile.

“I wasn’t hungry, I’m afraid. I have a lot on my mind. How was your day?” she asked, eager to direct the attention off of herself. She came to stand behind where the Seeker was sitting. She lowered down over her, her arms reaching and wrapping around her chest from behind as she tucked her chin on Cassandra’s shoulder. Feeling her embrace, Cassandra leaned back, finally relenting in her polishing task.

“It was a day. Iron Bull broke another of the straw men, and then Cullen insisted we use the ones from the storage that are worn down and smell odd. Fereldans are hardly above anything that comes across as practical on the surface.” She gazed out her window, feeling Olivia’s arms rest on her. She inhaled the smell of powders and herbs on her skin.

Olivia smirked, resting her lips on Cassandra’s neck, kissing her skin once before pulling away. “Perhaps next time you should insist that they be stuffed with flowers and not straw. Can you imagine the flurry of blossoms in the air when the soldiers practice?” a grin on one side of her mouth as she came around to face her head on.

Cassandra gave her hearty chuckle, the one that felt like being held close to a warm fire with tea on the ears. “I would imagine half of the enlistees would quit on site if their masculinity proved too fragile to sustain it.”

“Yes, but would you want such people serving in the forces anyway, who were insulted by floral sparring dummies and not by the fact that an arch demon-wielding Magistrate wishes to destroy the world?”

“You would be surprised the kind of complaints the Commander gets in one day. Sometimes, Leliana and I read them together when we need a good laugh.” Cassandra finished her polishing work, grabbing her breastplate which sheened like it hadn’t been more than a week old since it was crafted, and placed it on the table beside her. She sighed heavily, finally done with her evening routine of cleaning and polishing metallic things.

Satisfied, she turned her attention fully on Olivia now leaning against the bookshelf, arms folded as she nibbled on one of her fingernails, eyes towards the floor.

“You look as though you have witnessed a murder,” Cassandra rubbed the back of her neck, face softening now.

Olivia’s eyes flickered anxiously back to her, being caught in their contemplative state. “Perhaps I have and I simply trying to figure out a way to get away with it and sneak away in the middle of the night without a trace.”

Cassandra rose to her feet, and stepped closer to her, a hand reaching out to grab her waist and gently pull her in. “That is more paranoid than I would expect, coming from you.”

“You did say I was full of surprises,” Olivia’s hands went up alone Cassandra’s chest, feeling the thick wool fabric of the under-armor layer beneath her palms. “Surely they cannot all be cute and endearing.”

“I mean it, what makes you so melancholy tonight?” Cassandra’s hands expanded and braced on the small of Olivia’s back, feeling the shyness in her posture made her concerned.

“I do admit that my spirits are low. Perhaps some poetry from a very cultured and esteemed voice could uplift them from the brink?” her hands gripped onto her shirt’s collar, eyes on her lips as she shifted the subject to something she knew would get the Seeker’s imagination going.

Cassandra laughed softly, rocking a bit from side to side as she felt Olivia almost inch-for-inch against her. “And what, exactly, do you wish to hear be performed tonight, my Lady?”

Olivia shifted her weight unto her toes, and she nuzzled Cassandra’s nose with her own. “Something sickly sweet, too sweet for anyone’s blood but ours, pretty please.”

“I know just the one. But first, I would love to see whether this gown looks just as beautiful when it is tossed to the floor.”

Olivia gave a seductress’s grin as she gave a gentle, teasing love bit on Cassandra’s chin.

“By all means, do investigate, Seeker.”

\--

A couple of hours or so after that initial conversation, they were once again sprawled out on Cassandra’s bed, enthralled in conversation and recitation of poetic verse. The first night Olivia had asked for a reading, Cassandra stuttered and hesitated a bit, nervous to expose such a side of her to someone else. Now, her passion and interest in writing filled the air as she spoke with confidence and warmth.

By the third poem, Olivia felt the most at ease that she had felt all day. She had escaped well enough from the matters waiting on the other side of the door, for now.

“That was beautiful,” she cooed, lying on her back beside the Seeker, who sat upright and against the headboard. Both women were as naked as the day they were born, and even Olivia had to admit her dress looked rather fetching when crinkled up on the floor.

Cassandra grinned and closed the small, palm-sized book she had in her one hand. “I agree. I love the way he discusses her motivations, as if they were equal parts responsibility and spiritual necessity. Such things resonate with me.”

“Andraste seemed more impulsive and risky than I think you would be comfortable with in an ally, or a friend, even,” Olivia countered.

“Oh? Have you seen the women allies of the Inquisition? They are hardly conservative in their choices, and yet here we are.”

“Touche. Perhaps you are better at keeping your sterling opinions to yourself than your reputation gives you credit for.”

“No, I make my stance clear as much as I can. My allies and I simply respect each other, even when we diverge on our opinions. Such collaboration is vital to an organization such as this: homogeneity of viewpoint breeds injustice.”

Olivia sat up then, feeling the way her body reacted to the cool air invigorated her. She kindly reached for the book Cassandra held in her hand, taking it from her as she straddled the Seeker’s lap – a frequent and favorite position for her during these nights together. She held it between her two hands and against Cassandra’s chest, her eyes gazing sweetly into hers.

“And what of these opinions if you are made Divine? Will they become less, as you say, collaborative?”

Cassandra exhaled, being reminded of the Chantry’s deliberation over who would become Divine Justinia’s successor. It was not an overtly pleasant topic of discussion for her, but she had felt a duty to inform Olivia of just what could be awaiting her after the Inquisition’s cause was fulfilled, if it was ever to be so. Not everyone enjoys hooking up with who could be the next leader of the Chantry, much less a Mage who had reasons to find it especially deterrent.

“I would do my best to be even more compassionate, then. The Divine is obligated to be. One leader, even if they are Divine, cannot be the universal voice. Still, I would have goals and ambitions, of course.”

“It is hard to imagine you in a Divine’s robes, with what your attire usually is like,” Olivia grinned a bit as she watched her.

“Indeed, which is why it may be best to wait until such a decision is made to imagine it.”

Olivia’s lips pursed. She placed the book onto the sheets beside them, before putting both free hands on Cassandra’s abdomen. Her hands slowly moved, feeling the complex texture of her skin that had amassed scars and cuts to it; she had weathered every violent storm of her life, and it told stories on her skin and face. No book she could recite from would tell such a compelling story such as the one on her body. Olivia’s face grew steeped in regret, even as she tried her best to hide it and keep herself occupied with conversation.

“Olivia,” Cassandra muttered, reaching a hand and resting it on the crux of Olivia’s neck and shoulders, her thumb reaching up towards her jawline, “is there something you are not telling me?”

“Yes, and I know I must tell you, or risk losing your good opinion forever. I just…I don’t have the heart for it,” her voice cracked with emotional burden, and she looked down at her lap, face lowering in shame. Cassandra’s brow furrowed a bit and she reached her curled index finger up under Olivia’s chin, lifting her glance so as to reconnect it with her own.

“You have no reason to fear me, or fear being forthcoming with me.” In a strange twinge of optimism, Cassandra had hoped that maybe Olivia would finally confess that she was open to love, and open to loving her, specifically. Each night they had spent together had been her covert efforts to convince her, to seduce her heart and her mind as much as her body had been. Perhaps, then, this was the moment she was hungering for.

“I…” Olivia swallowed hard, “I have been requested to return to Monstimmard, and marry the widow Lady Adalia Ferndale.”

Okay, so, this was not a romantic confession. In fact, it was the terrible opposite of such a thing.

Cassandra fidgeted in her position against the headboard, Olivia’s weight going with her without much resistance. Jealousy and its minions began to dance in her heart, not as if she had a competitor for Olivia’s affections per se, but that there was a competitor for her existence, her companionship.

“Is that what you want, then? Have you decided?” Cassandra began to flood with anger derived from lack of fairness.

“No, but I feel it only right that I go. I have been striving for this ever since the Circles rebelled: to have safety, security once again. Now I have my chance.”

“But, do you love her?”

“What kind of question is that, Cassandra?” Olivia shook her head as her eyes narrowed.

“It is the question I wish to know, most of all, before my anger gets the best of my tongue.”

“I do not love her. You know I prevent myself from experiencing such things. This would be an arrangement, with advantages and wealth the center of it all. Not something as poisonous as love.”

“You think love poisonous?”

“I do not mince my words, I am afraid.”

Cassandra’s jaw clenched and she slid out from under Olivia’s weight, a hand guiding her thigh off of her as she withdrew from the bed. She stiffly walked over to the trunk by the window, where her resting clothes sat usually undisturbed. Opening the trunk lid, a hand searched and found a clean night robe. As she slipped it on over her body, body tense with frustration, she kept her back to Olivia who remained upright on the bed, watching her as if she were watching a wildfire overtake a forest with tragic futility.

“Cassandra…” she timidly offered, brushing her own hair out of her face, “I can’t bear to think I would lose you from my life if I were to go.”

The Seeker hastily tied the robe around her waist, cinching it tightly and with stern vigor in her hands. “So I am simply supposed to pretend this last week was a dream, a brief sojourn in our otherwise cordial and platonically distanced interactions?” she said, facing the window.

“I know you are angry with me, but please, try to see this from my side.”

“I would if it made any sense. You are marrying someone whom you do not love, retreating from a life of purpose to become someone’s ornamental furnishing, and close off from the world you wish to impact with your deeds. Am I missing something? Some sort of detail, or caveat, that you have neglected to tell me?”

“Cassandra,” Olivia edged towards the side of the bed, slipping one leg down, “a life locked in a Manor is better to me than a life at the mercy of violence.”

“How so, Olivia? Because from where I am standing, both groups objectify you and degrade your humanity to little more than a fanciful afterthought.”

The Seeker’s words stung. Olivia felt as though everything around her was starting to come undone. She had allowed Cassandra too much insight into her life and soul, and now she could speak with an understanding and honesty that was most inconvenient to hear.

“And what would you know of being on the run, barely an inch out of the clutches of death some days, knowing the world wouldn’t linger on the memory of you if you were to die? Tell me, Seeker to the Chantry, how useless you are to the Empire that your family wouldn’t know of your death until too many years had passed for them to wait on your return?”

Cassandra looked over her shoulder at her. “Olivia, this is unnecessa—“

“No, it is. It surely is. You stand there, ready to judge my choice, and you know nothing of its ingredients. I can recount my vast trauma to you, naked as I am now in both body and mind, and you will still hold onto the same rigid and unsympathetic virtues you have about Mages and their grief. Or perhaps your prejudice is with women as a whole, who do not do as you do, and become the hardened heroines of their own stories.”

“I have never held anything against you on purpose. You cannot blame me for taking offense to you leaving, leaving me to make sense of a situation you are always ready to abandon.”

“I told you I can’t put myself in a situation to love, and be at someone’s mercy. I was honest!”

“Yes, but were your nights here in my bed dishonest, then? Was the way you held onto me when you slept, and dreamed a façade?”

“I…” Olivia stopped herself, sighing heavily as she rubbed her face with both of her hands. “I am fond of you, Cassandra, you know this. In every which way, you’ve broken my rules, and now you’re used to the sensation, I suppose. But, my rule still stands: loving is the death of me, and always will be.”

“Then perhaps your choice in a Nevarran is most fitting, concerning our infatuation with death.” Cassandra’s jaw clenched, feeling grotesque in her emotionality. It wasn’t disciplined or refined as she should be. She turned away, her back to Olivia who had remained on the bed, while she recollected herself. Olivia’s heart ached to see her turned away from her, both physically and emotionally. It was so unlike their nights of unabashed openness and candor.

“I know you’ll resent me for this. I just want to know if you think you could forgive me, and remain in my life as someone I deeply value and care for.”

“Careful, Olivia, if you say such things you may, in fact, become victim to the toxicity of human emotion.”

“Perhaps you have been expecting that all along from the Mage woman warming your bed, and now you simply wish to mock her into it.”

Cassandra, feeling the rare and elusive spike of anger from Olivia’s mouth envelope the air around them, she turned to face her from her shoulder view, now. She had no idea what to say to such a situation, or what would be best. This was uncharted territory, and her disdain for Orlesian nobility and their Game was at a heightened state of vitriol. Now, the Game was not some abstract and nauseating ambiance, it was taking a person away from her whom she had grown attached to, to the chagrin of her logic.

“I do not know what I wish,” Cassandra admitted, crossing her arms and leaning onto one hip, “I only know that the thought of watching you go makes me want to punch through a wall of stone.”

Olivia held her breath in her chest. Her preparation to continue arguing was stomped out by Cassandra’s intimate admonition. Rising from the bed now, and walking over to her lover with compassionate caution in her posture, she wished to shift the malicious tide they had reinforced. When she arrived in front of her, she gripped her hands on the cinched velvet belt around Cassandra’s waist, pulling herself in close to her, as Cassandra tried her best to maintain some sense of dignity. She looked up at her, but was met only by a rejection of eye contact.

“You cannot say that it pleases you, either,” Cassandra added, remaining unmovable.

“Of course it makes me unhappy, Cassandra, otherwise I would have danced in here, told you the blessed news, and leave as quickly as I had arrived. You know you mean a great deal to me, even when I know it maddens you that I cannot give you what you want most.”

“And what it is, exactly, that I desire from you? Since you seem to be a master on the subject before I have yet to express it.”

“You want me to be hopelessly, wondrously, and irrevocably in love with you. Like a heroine in one of your stories, the ones who fall against their better judgement.”

“Do not be irrational, Olivia,” Cassandra then tried her best to pull away, but Olivia’s hands on her belt tightened their grip. She eyed her now, wondering why she was to be kept here even as she was angered more and more as the minutes went by. Olivia’s jaw tensed, feeling her want to pull away from her closeness.

“Cassandra, please,” she simply said, “if you have never once been honest with me about who you are, be so now. I beg you.”

The sound of her plea made Cassandra’s stubborn heart ache with pressure to break from its habitual harshness. Her throat hardened, and she looked past Olivia’s shoulder for a moment, trying to decide on her feet whether it was wise at this point to be so honest about her feelings and desires. Why do so now, only to be told they are not enough, or that they are too late to change her mind? It would surely just be wasted energy, and wasted vulnerability.

“I cannot. If I were, it would only make the situation more painful that it is now. If you wish to go, then do so. You have my blessing and appreciation for all you have done here to aid the Inquisition.”

“Cassandra.”

“No, Olivia. That is all. Perhaps it would be best if…we did not share sleeping arrangements tonight.”

Olivia felt her throat swell as the urge to cry began to grow in the back of her eyes. This had gone about as poorly as she had feared, and as she expected. Cassandra was not known for her patience in conflictive situations, and now, seeing her reputation ring true even for her, it was implicitly devastating. As tears were felt in the bottoms of her eyes, she turned away, resting the back of her hand to her mouth quietly as she contained herself.

She then went and picked up her dress from the floor. Pensively, she gathered it between her hands, and slipped it over her head and down over her body, her arms sliding and stretching into the slimly fit sleeves. As she dressed herself, Cassandra watched her frame, her body nimble and stretched upwards towards the ceiling as she let her dress fall around her and shape her figure. It would imprint on her subconscious, even when she was long gone. What would burn her mind tonight would surely provide her bittersweet solace in the nights to come, when there was no longer someone else sleeping beside her, whistling as she breathed in her sleep like a songbird.

Maker, how was she supposed to just let her go?

Olivia’s hands anxiously swept her hair away and up onto her head, and she went and picked up her hair clip she had put on the trunk at the foot of Cassandra’s bed, and stuck it in strategically. When she was all ready to go, she stared off into the corner, where Cassandra’s armor was laid out. She folded her arms under her chest.

“I will be leaving the day after tomorrow, then, after I have a day to hand off my projects and notes.”

A half-moment of quiet suspense as she anticipated – hoped for – a response, one last answer.

“Maker be with you, Lady Olivia.”

Olivia’s eyes shut as she tried her best not to devolve into a pile of emotionally torn weeping. She turned to face her one last time, eyes managing to open without letting tears fall, and she nodded once in goodbye. Then, a hand gripping the side of her skirt, she made her way to the door. Slipping out of it as secretively as she had entered, Olivia was gone. The door’s aching as it shut was the one disturbance in the quiet.

The principles of discipline and restraint were Cassandra’s refuge when she faced times like these: they protected her heart, and gave her a sense of direction where she felt overwhelmed. Years and years of work as a Seeker, as an Andrastian, had drummed in these habits as if they were etched into stone. Now, when all else failed, she would fall asleep that night knowing that her beliefs would not abandon her for some stuck-up noble in Montsimmard.

Making her way to her bed, she felt herself blaming Olivia for her choices. Judging her was a solace. Sitting down on it, she did something she was not used to doing for the sake of someone else’s feelings: she corrected herself. She remembered their talks, when Olivia would open up about just how traumatizing it had been to be a rogue, and a rogue Mage especially. How she held back tears, or struggled to answer certain questions: the way her violent memories marched across her face, a face that was always such a beacon of kindness and mercy in the daylight. Cassandra thought that by compelling her to open up, these obstacles could be overcome. Now, she worried she had merely reminded Olivia of why security was the number one priority of her life, and not being here, with her, tangled in sheets and anxiously hoping her lover wouldn’t be lost to war one of these days.

This is how Cassandra knew she had fallen for her: that when it came to her most lauded practice of judgement and appraisal, she hadn’t the heart to picture her face and decide whether or not her actions for justifiable. Her love was a clemency, a loyalty, even when the actions of the accused were so earnestly hurtful.

Laying on her back and gazing up at the ceiling with jaded eyes, Cassandra mouthed her prayers.


	6. The Goodbye Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Olivia's decision to embark on her new life leaves everyone with mixed emotions in Skyhold, most of all the Seeker who would secretly give most anything for her to stay. A token of appreciation confuses Olivia's loved ones, leaving them unsure of whether or not this is what she really wants.

The morning fog had yet to retreat from the daylight, as the carriage was being loaded for Olivia’s departure from Skyhold. As the last couple trunks were being lifted and secured she watched with a stoic, quiet face framed by her white hooded cape billowing in the soft wind current. Underneath was a stiff and tight powder blue gown, long-sleeve and with a high collar embellished with gold buttons and embroidery. She looked as though she was ready to step back into the storybook life, but it was a strange kind of captivity that awaited her.

Beside her, the collected group of allies that had grown fond of her had awoken to wish her well. There were, of course, the three Foxes who would remain at Skyhold to continue work. Then, behind them, there was Josephine, Vivienne, Blackwall, and Dorian. Sera would have been there, but sleep was a hard embrace to get out of for the rogue elf, so instead she sent a jar of cookies with Iron Bull as an insurance policy for her absence. Krem stood back, having showed up with Veronica, but no one was paying attention as to why both of them were together so early in the morning. Iron Bull, carrying a bundle of flowers and the jar of cookies to give to Olivia, from both Sera and the Chargers. There isn’t a sight quite like a group of skilled mercenaries fumbling in a meadow for flowers pretty enough for the girl who baked them bread and made them teas that helped them sleep.

Turns out, Olivia was quite a hit at Skyhold.

She sighed and then turned to the group, feeling humbled by such an assembly. Vivienne was standing tall, a fellow Montsimmard veteran who had kept her company on some days when she was working in the Mage tower, or had come to borrow a book or two. They often talked about their experiences with the region’s nobility, and how clever they were for working with their fashion norms.

“Madame de Fer, ‘twas a pleasure,” Olivia curtsied out of kindness.

“Oh, sweet dear,” Olivia grinned, before pulling her in for a most surprising embrace. Everyone turned, eyes widened to see such a candid sight of affection coming from the First Enchanter.

“You will write to me, of course. I must hear all of the juicy secrets, and your musings on every one. ‘Tis not an everyday occasion that one of us becomes a Lady of a Household, do take care.”

“Yes, I promise! Thank you.” Olivia hugged her back, before having to stand on her own again.

Then, down the line to Dorian, who had a haughty joke to tell about her beguiling every person in Skyhold, that she could have wielded the army to march into the sea if she had so wished. She giggled with an underlying melancholy, but Dorian felt triumphant in getting her to giggle at all.

“Take care, little dove. You are precious cargo,” he finally said. They held hands, and she squeezed his before moving on to say goodbye to Iron Bull. She would miss the Tevinter charm and sarcasm. The Iron Bull, then, handed the goods to Olivia, feeling out of sorts with just how to do so and not say something crass.

“Ah, crap, don’t give me those eyes. You look like a wounded baby deer,” he grumbled, already feeling self-conscious from holding the flowers for so long.

Olivia put her hand to her mouth, disguising the urge to laugh. “Bull, I will miss you. Please tell the rest that I will send along my bread recipe. I promised the Dalish too many times,” she shook her head.

From behind a few people, Krem’s voice rang out loud: “She has been twisting my arm to ask you, she’s quite impossible.” Beside him, Veronica smirked, elbowing him in the side gently so as to say give her a break.

Olivia’s gaze returned to Bull, who towered over her petite frame. She curtsied, her neat little head of braided blonde hair so cute to him. “Farewell, then. I am sure we will be seeing each other again, soon, Bull.” He grumbled in return, trying to hide emotions, and failing. He was going to miss this little dove so much.

Then, at last, Blackwall. She approached with a soft pout on her face, shoulders rounded as she held her hands together in front of her. Her hands were now full with flower blossoms and a cookie jar.

“Blackwall, I don’t know what to say.”

“Oh, pretty girl, you are too beautiful to be pouting so. Come ‘ere,” he energetically scooped her up, spinning her around as she lightly kicked her feet up and down. She was giggling with surprise, bracing her gifts so as to not squish them under his hold. He was positively delightful.

“Blackwall! You will make it impossible to leave!” she cried as he let her down at last, and she bounced a bit when on the ground once more.

“Good, that was the idea.”

“I will see you soon. You break my heart, all of you do.” She turned to look at them all. They all seemed to be holding it together for her, brave and heartfelt faces of skilled warriors, Mages, and mercenaries. They had all grown a soft spot for her, this little thing, tenacious and kind. There was always room for such a friend, when your profession was so fraught with danger and uncertainty.

Then, saving the most heartbreaking for last, she turned to her friends, the Foxes. Approaching their little grouping, she bit her lip. Her eyes began to well with tears once more; it had been a long morning of this.

From the corner of her eye, she say that the footman gave her a nod so as to say she was loaded and ready for departure. She was thankful for the driver, her offered to take the gifts she had cradled in her arms from her to stow them in the carriage cab. Then, nothing else to fret about, she turned and gave a sorry smile to her Foxes, who all then smiled in return – well, except for Veronica, who was unable to hide how pissed she was that this was happening – and they crowded in for a group embrace.

“Oh,” Naomi cooed, “sweet, sweet girl. Your sunshine will be missed in these halls,” Naomi said, muffled through their hug, her cheek against Olivia’s shoulder.

“Don’t say that, I will cry more!” Olivia replied.

Theia chuckled, holding them to her chest. “Come now, what’s a proper goodbye without some tears?”

They held each other for as long as they could, Veronica managing to kiss Olivia on the side of her forehead, trying to cooperate with the futility of her leaving. She wanted to argue with her, convince her she was stupid to be leaving and giving all of this up for the sake of some Manor and stack of money. But, she knew an argument would only encourage her to stick by her choice more. After everything they had been through, perhaps it was alright to want some peace and quiet. Olivia at last forced herself to break away from them, a rough sigh escaping her lips and creating frost in the air.

“You have an admirer,” Veronica said low, eyes looking up beyond the courtyard towards the stairs leading to the Great Hall. The women then all turned to follow her gaze, and there Olivia’s hazel eyes made contact with the Seeker’s face, overseeing the departure with the most angst-filled expression she could muster. She stood beside Leliana, who looked more stoic and unimpressed with the situation, her hands paired behind her waist in her typical stance of preparedness.

Olivia pursed her lips. “An observer, yes, an admirer, I’m afraid not,” she said mournfully, maintaining eye contact with her just a bit longer, before turning away. “Theia, can you help me into the carriage, please?”

“…Surely,” Theia hesitated, feeling Veronica’s steel glare in her direction, and she walked forward with her towards the opened door.

From the vantage point of the stairs, Leliana felt as though they were overseeing a robbery and not a departure. She felt the still fury in her compatriot beside her, and it pulled at her romantic heart. This was not how they had all wagered this would go – perhaps some trouble, some arguments, and dramatic confessions in front of crowds. This, however, was sincerely painful to witness. Leliana and the Seeker had been through a lot together, and while their individual professions did not always ensure close proximity, she had seen Cassandra in many different lights now. This one she would remember as the most endearingly sad.

“Cassandra,” she said low and discrete, “is this really how you want to leave things?”

The Seeker was quiet, unwilling to divulge any hopes or dreams left in the situation. It was all dying before her eyes, fruitless and to waste. The Nevarran in her knew what was to be done about death and its process: let it be, and make do with what was left behind.

“Cassandra,” Leliana turned her shoulders more in her direction, “I am speaking with you.”

“Leliana, do not press me.”

“I am not, I am merely asking a question, no?”

The Seeker huffed, “a pressing question.”

Leliana shook her head, returning her optics to the scene before them. “You are always so stubborn and unmovable. I find it hard to believe anyone could make you blink, let alone her.”

“What is so unbelievable about that?”

“She’s simple. She’s quaint, and pretty, and she knows little about our political realm. She is sweet to look at, but there is not much there in her head. How did you entertain yourself? Was it the sexual chemistry?”

“Leliana,” Cassandra growled, “Olivia is a brilliant Apothecary scholar. She studies and pursues her work diligently. She is capable, talented, and kindhearted. She is an exemplary woman, and an exemplary Mage. Do not ever presume to understand her in such an irreverent fashion in my presence again.”

There was a stone-cold ambiance to their place on the stairs, now, as if Cassandra had unsheathed her sword and challenged the Spymaster to a duel for honor. Cassandra, emboldened in her fury, withdrew and stomped down the stairs towards the courtyard.

Leliana watched her go, before making eye contact with her friend down on the ground, the Ambassador who was also watching. She grinned – she had done just the trick to make Cassandra get out of her own way. It was almost too easy, especially to do to a Seeker who was proud of her ability to discern truth from fabrication. Nodding once, she confirmed the success Josephine, who winked in return. She then rushed over to where Olivia was about to be guided into her carriage.

“Olivia! I am afraid I forgot to stow your surprise in your luggage,” she said, pulling a small box from her belt. Olivia turned and her mouth widened, surprised and endeared by such consideration.

“Josephine! Ah, darling, you didn’t have to,” she said, taking the box and then wrapping her arms around Josephine’s neck. “You are so precious. Take care of my Theia-Bird, for me?” Olivia had grown very fond of the Ambassador during her time at Skyhold. The women had shared many gleeful suppers talking about the Game, Orlais, and gossiping about Skyhold personnel. At this point she was like a mischievous sister and not simply a colleague.

Josephine giggled feeling the breach in decorum was all-but necessary. She hugged her back without censure, and when she pulled away, she knew it had given Cassandra just enough time to arrive before Olivia could lock herself away in the traveling wooden box that would return her from whence she came.

Olivia, seeing a figure approach from over Josephine’s shoulder, let her happy facial expression fall. There she was, coming closer and closer, unavoidable. The scene quieted as everyone was keen to watch what would unfold, the nosy lot of them. Olivia stepped away from Theia and Josephine, lowering her hood now in a show of respect, though she did not know if it registered. Her head now exposed to the cold, she met the Seeker halfway, and they stood only about a foot apart from one another now.

“Seeker,” Olivia greeted solemnly, her hands fidgeting with one another under her cape.

“Lady Olivia,” Cassandra replied, hands behind her waist, her armor in full force now even in this early morning hour. Her greatsword – a controversial topic between them – strapped to her waist. “I…wished to convey my deepest gratitude for your work here, and wish you safe travels.”

The group all held their breath, wondering if that was really it. Come on, Cassandra, get some gumption.

“Oh, well, I am sincerely honored to have been a service to the Inquisition. I hope to continue to be, even with so much distance.” Olivia’s implicit meaning in her words, begging for a concession, for some scrap of innuendo from the Seeker to confirm that things would be okay. Her Gameplayer use of words was clear to Josephine, Vivienne, and perhaps Theia, but no one else.

“I am unsure whether that is mine to determine, but, you are always welcome here, as I am sure the Inquisitor has stated.”

A collective and discrete exhale could be felt between the Orlesian women who had a clue around them. Cassandra wasn’t giving an inch.

“Well, thank you, anyways. You have been a good friend, and a wonderful mentor. I will miss you.”

Olivia gave into the moment, curtsying one last time as a goodbye. In a surprise show, she reached her hand from the cover of her cloak, grabbing Cassandra’s arm and pulling out her left hand towards her. Opening the Seeker’s palm, she placed what looked like a chain and pendant into it, but she had crumpled it enough so it would be more mysterious. She then closed her hand with her own, holding her one fist between her two softly-gloved palms. She maintained eye contact the entire time, unsure whether the Seeker would humor her. When she did, she figured that was all she would hope to get from her.

She bit her lip, then. Without another word, she turned away and returned to the carriage, where Theia outstretched her hand and helped her mount into its cab. Josephine looked as if she was watching some tragic opera, the way she held her curled fingers to her lips.

Theia closed the door, sighing as she took one last gaze at her friend who sat all by herself in the middle of the bench, re-hooding her head and holding all her secrets close to her chest.

“Take care, Olivia, I love you,” Theia said, before slamming her hand against the carriage door to signify that she had been properly loaded to the driver and footman.

Veronica looked like she was about to curse out everyone within earshot, the way she bit down on her lip, jaw clenched, and arms folded. Krem stood behind her, arms folded as well, though he understood not to try to touch her temper in this moment. Naomi, standing on her other side, looked more resigned and compassionate to the situation, her hands down at her sides and chin tilted.

At once, the carriage started moving, and Theia put her hand to Josephine’s waist as she led her away from the moving vehicle. They took their steps back and watched as the carriage did a half-circle, before lining up perfectly for the open fortress gate. As if the driver had no clue as to the devastation he was leaving in his wake, he egged the horses on faster, and soon the was out the gate and traversing across the fortress bridge, growing smaller and smaller in size as she neared the horizon line.

Everyone was quiet, until she had made it to the end of the bridge. Then, it was a time for a good ol’ fashioned allied family roast.

“Seeker, you really shat the bed there,” Bull thundered as he turned to face the group.

“I must say, dear, that was disappointingly anticlimactic,” Vivienne chimed in, leaning onto one hip as she came to stand beside Dorian. Dorian nodded in mutual consensus.

“Seeker, it’s as if you use Varric’s serials as a way to learn how to not be an emotional human being.”

Theia and Josephine watched as if they were the married couple of the House, as everyone began to bicker. Theia felt the dread in her throat grow as the comments and criticisms began flying like Mage fire through the air. Decorum was quickly dissolving into brutal honesty hour.

At her side, Veronica huffed, tossing her arms up in the air and letting them fall onto her thighs, making a sharp slapping sound. She was not to be distracted by everyone’s attention on Cassandra; she believed she knew the true culprit of the situation. “I can’t believe you actually made her go, Theia. Talk about friend! Bloody hell, I’m about to mount a horse and go after her!”

“Don’t be rash, Veronica, Olivia made her choice. We cannot always protect her, least of all from herself,” Naomi critiqued, placing her hands on her hips like a moderating Matron figure.

“Olivia needs protection from herself, do you see what she does when she’s given one free choice? She hides herself up in a noblewoman’s skirts for life, just as she was getting to do what she loves to do. She’s insecure because you did not support her,” Veronica looked at Theia, the Inquisitor herself, who she believed had the power to change this situation.

“Veronica,” Josephine chimed in, “Theia does not have free reign to run amok of noble relations. She has to think about the Inquisition’s best interests, and not simply Olivia’s, as much as all want her to be happy and safe here with us all,” her Antivan accent was sharp and impatient with Veronica’s temper – some things changed, while others remained the same.

“Josephine is right, Veronica. Besides, this won’t be the last time we see each other.”

“That is what you said before we all vanished from each other’s lives for a year, believed dead or worse!” Veronica growled, before she spit to the ground.

“Veronica,” Krem, of all people, spoke up from behind her. All of the women, wound up and ready for a venomous debate that could possibly end in unsheathed daggers, turned to look at the poor, unprepared Charger, who flinched slightly in reaction to all of their stern and lethal stares. Between the two Antivans, one Fereldan, and Free Marcher, he felt every defensive Tevinter bone in his body quake with geographical terror.

“I…well, see for yourself,” he said, pointing in the direction of the Seeker.

Theia hastily turned her head, and realized they had all forgotten about the one person who perhaps had the most to lose, besides the Foxes, in Olivia’s absence.

There she was, the strong-willed and iron-clad woman she had known her to be: Cassandra Pentaghast, former Seeker to the Chantry and right hand of the Divine, Princess of Nevarra and 78th in line to the throne, Seeker of the Inquisition, looking like a grief-stricken wife who had just watched her partner depart for the front lines. She stared quietly down at the necklace she had been given, which shined in the light grey, fog-engulfed sky. It was a handcrafted, humble thing: silver, old, and weathered. The pendant was of a muse’s body intertwined in a tapestry, her hands gathered in the shape of prayer hands, her hair long and beautifully curled.

Theia and Naomi approached her, feeling the most qualified to do so.

“Cassandra…” Theia said, before her nosiness got the best of her and she too, gazed down at the necklace she had left in her wake.

Naomi then gasped, not needing a long look in order to understand what the gift was. “That was a gift from her Father, on the night of her debut in the operetta. It’s the patroness saint of Dance and Art from her Province.”

Cassandra looked up at once, eyes meeting with Naomi’s as her face softened now. Theia’s eyes widened as well, feeling the brevity of the situation deepen. So, there had been something, because Olivia wouldn’t just gift this to a good friend and mentor. She had never gifted it to any of the Foxes, and they had shed blood for one another. This was something she did to make a grandiose point, loud and clear. She watched as Cassandra once again stared at it, her thumb lightly feeling the pendant’s carvings.

“I have to go after her,” the Seeker mumbled hopelessly.

“Cassandra…” Theia replied.

“Yes, go, Cassandra! Someone should show her she’s cared for,” Veronica chimed in, side-stepping around to enter the conversation. Vivienne and Dorian also closed in.

“Do not be preposterous. Olivia would be silly to deny Lady Adalia’s offer this late in the Game. If she left you with this, how sure can you be that she would be amenable to you?” Vivienne, now, with the sobering logic she was known for.

“Perhaps it is a code to say she’s being secretly kidnapped against her will, and to rescue her from the clutches of the enemy,” Dorian said, half-sarcastic, and not one for seriously sad moments.

“Vivienne has a point, if Olivia did all this preparation to leave, what if this was simply a parting gift?” Naomi looked anxiously at Theia, the only other person who could intimately predict what motivated her actions. Maybe it was impulsive, done for the sake of the moment, and not pre-planned.

“Olivia does not acknowledge her past in open air easily. If anything, this is her saying she’s still who she is, even when making her choice,” Theia tried to decipher it, but even she was confused. This was quite the wrench to throw in at the last minute.

“I don’t believe that for a moment. She wants to stay here, and is looking for someone to help her. If Cassandra doesn’t go, I will,” Veronica, heavy-handed, but loyal. They both loved and dreaded her for it.

“Veronica, you can’t do that,” Naomi warned, shaking her head.

The group started to devolve into a few sub-conversations, bickering and opinions once gain filling the air like smoke on a battlefield. It became quickly overwhelming and scatter-brained to experience. There she was, Cassandra, in the middle of it all, staring down at this necklace like it held the key to everything in her life up until this point.

“Enough!” she growled loudly, looking up from her prize. At once, everyone stopped and looked at her. It was as if they all wanted the verdict they had spent the last several minutes lobbying for, and now the jury was in, ready to give its report.

“Olivia cannot be saved from herself for the rest of her life. The Inquisitor is right. She makes her own choices, and only she can decide for her own good what is best. If she wishes to return, and deny the proposal, that is her decision. I cannot make it for her. I will remain here, as will everyone else,” Cassandra’s eyes made contact with Veronica’s, warning her against it as she spoke the last part.

Everyone glanced at everyone else, trying to form a group consensus on Cassandra’s reaction. Theia, satisfied that her opinion had been taken into account, sighed under her breath.

“Perhaps it would be best if everyone returns to their quarters or offices, and gets some rest before the day truly begins,” Theia ordered, looking at each individual person and expecting agreement.

“Fine, but you aren’t getting me up at the ass-crack of dawn tomorrow when the Seeker decides to be cheeky and go after her,” The Iron Bull said as he strutted off. Krem looked at Veronica and pursed his lips, seeing that she was not going to let go of this bone any time soon, and he followed after the Chief. Blackwall also withdrew back to the stables.

“Cassandra, when I said get in touch with your feelings, I did not mean track them down and murder them in cold blood,” Dorian gave one last caveat before he, too, left and went up the stairs towards the Great Hall. Vivienne sighed, feeling unimpressed with the situation’s lack of gallantry. When she left, all that remained were the Foxes, Josephine, and the Seeker.

“This means we wait, then,” Naomi concluded, folding her arms.

“Yes, I am afraid so,” Cassandra replied, tucking the necklace into a pocket behind her breastplate.

“What will you do if she doesn’t come back?” Theia asked, curiosity killing the cat.

“The better question would be to ask what you will do if she does, in fact return,” Josephine rejoined, as all eyes then turned onto the Seeker who’s gaze was on the ground as she tried to make sense of the situation.

“If she does not return, the Inquisition carries on, and I along with it. If she does…Maker, help me.” Cassandra sighed. Taking her own leave, she made her way to the stairs and walked back up them, planning on hiding out somewhere for the day as much as she could, while she awaited the truth to manifest itself.

When she left, the women all watched her.

“Oh, she’s got it bad,” Naomi commented.

“That is for certain,” Josephine said, too.

“It’s like watching a dragon chase its own tail,” Theia, the third voice now in agreement.

“Who’s going to tell her she’s strung by Olivia’s corset strings then?” Veronica, finding a reprieve in her anger to acknowledge Cassandra’s sorry situation.

“That, I am afraid, will have to be Olivia’s job,” Naomi replied. They stared at each other now, simultaneously hopeful and nervous for what was to come. They didn’t know what to be more afraid of: Cassandra’s temper, or Olivia’s flare for getting herself into trouble.


	7. The Strike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whilst everyone holds their breath wondering whether Olivia will save herself, Cassandra tries to take solace in her allies' company. A Great Hall supper has more in store than that for the Seeker, though, and everyone who managed to show up for dinner is in for a show.

The day dragged its helpless feet as far as everyone was concerned, and it was only worsened by the belief that perhaps it would take days to find out whether Olivia would go back on her choice. This first day, then, became agony. No one wished to talk about it for the fear or further aggravating, but at the same time, it was all anyone wanted to discuss anyhow. Would Cassandra soften her heart at last for someone who would certainly deserve it? What if Olivia never returned and this would be the great big elephant in the room every time they encountered one another?

Such a suggestion made the faint of heart shudder.

Meanwhile, Cassandra had rotated between taking comfort by the Smith’s fire, being up in her loft, or practicing maneuvers in the courtyard. By such a description, no one would wonder if anything was wrong – such was the typical day for Seeker Pentaghast. Though, the key was what lay beneath the surface of her posture: the torn emotions, the over-analyzing of Olivia’s gift, regretting that she sent her away that last night instead of pleading with her further. For Cassandra, if she fell short, it was always because she did not push just one step further. It was maddening to regret in such a way.

At last, the amorous embrace of the twilight sky made itself known. Another arduous workday at Skyhold for the books, and Cassandra had made her way to her quarters, presumably to undress and go to sleep. Supper was passing by, and this time, no angel-haired woman was going to knock on her door.

She got herself out of her armor and set it down on the same table she always did. Now, it would be time to clean, polish, and then go to bed. But, something inside gnawed at her and her desire for routine. Feeling the loneliness of the room – the way it was so still, and unforgiving, with no one there to light it up like a glorious flame – she felt uncomfortable being alone for the first time in recent memory. Was this going to be her life after trying to love one woman, the death of her discipline and independence? Maker, what was Olivia not going to leave in shambles in her absence?

\--

Fitting herself into some of her resting clothes, which would undoubtedly cause tongues to wag in the dining hall, she made her way down to supper, hoping she would find at least one person she did not dread being around. Entering through one of the side doors, she saw a Hall humming and cooing with activity, but it wasn’t as crowded as she assumed it would be. The air was calm, and people were not in a rush to go anywhere. If she let down enough of her walls, she could almost find it pleasant to be in such spaces. Almost.

“Seeker Pentaghast, out after sundown, I see. Tell me, is there a dragon out in the stables, too?” Varric’s voice ruined the redemption process for the evening. Cassandra groaned and turned around, seeing the dwarf at his favorite fireplace, chalice in hand and books on the table behind him.

“What do you want, Varric?”

Varric smirked. “Do you always greet friendly company with shards of ice between your teeth? Come, sit down, have a drink.”

“I could think of nothing more unbearable.”

“Oh? I hear being in love with a woman who evades your grasp is a killer. Perhaps we can lament about our mutual experiences with such things. Come, sit,” he beckoned her over, the olive branch of the moment refusing to give way to Cassandra’s temper. She turned and sighed heavily, feeling too emotionally exhausted to continue arguing. Maybe, just maybe, Varric wouldn’t leave her wanting to pluck her eyes out of her head. The last time they had been sat around a table for detailed conversation, he proved to be a dishonest bastard. Well, one with the best intentions, but still.

She took a seat on the right side of his chair. He smiled with smugness as he took his own seat now. He sat back and crossed one leg over the other. From the corner of her eye, Cassandra could see Bianca at the ready up against the fireplace.

“I am sorry I missed this morning’s sendoff, I had some business keep me up throughout the night writing papers, and sleep does not like to be fended off.”

“I hardly missed you. Besides, she had quite the populous there to say their farewells.”

Varric chuckled. “It’s not surprising. Everyone fell in love with Twinkle-Toes the minute she arrived.”

“Twinkle-Toes?”

“Don’t argue with it, Seeker. It’s my thing.”

“Ugh.”

Cassandra sat back in her chair, eyes veering towards the fire as she felt his humor grade on her already fraught nerves.

“I had something to say, but your facial expression just made me want to drop everything and run for the hills. Ah, yes, now I remember. Now, listen carefully Seeker, because I understand just how much orders and advice can get lost on you…”

“Varric,” she growled, rolling her eyes.

“I mean it. I don’t dole this out to just anyone. But, since you are one of my most loyal readers, I find it only necessary that I instruct you on such matters.”

“Instruct? You, telling me what to do in my affairs? The Maker himself would laugh at such an insinuation.”

“Do you want the advice or not?”

“No.”

“Well, too late. This is important shit, real, top-tier insight.”

Cassanda’s brow furrowed as she placed her head in her hand, fingers stretching around her right eye as the increasingly uncomfortable situation unfolded.

“Fine. What is it?”

“Don’t. Screw. This. Up.”

“Is that really all you have to say?”

Varric adjusted his seat. “Well, if you’re looking for a book, take out your coin purse.”

“Ugh, Maker’s mercy! Varric, you seek to annoy me at every turn, even when you know I am at my wit’s end.”

Varric shook his head, feeling the avarice that was flooding the space between them. Cassandra was always difficult to deal with, especially if you presumed a place of knowledge above her so much as an inch. He had hoped that maybe their beloved Twinkle-Toes would have softened her a bit, but now it was clear to him that Olivia preferred the “I love you exactly as you are” approach. Hawke and Isabella provoked a similar dynamic, and while it was inspiring, it was also inconvenient when both of them had tempers and stubborn streaks for trouble. Could he have one comrade who’s partner wasn’t above openly shaming them for their poor decisions?

“Annoying you was not my desire, Seeker. You simply have no sense of humor, and have found yourself hip-deep in the shit you have no experience with. Trust me on this: an inch of patience goes a long way.”

“You ruined my patience when you lied to me like a fiend, and then proceeded to saunter around the grounds as if you were the Maker’s gift to the land.”

“I did no such thing, and I am sure of it because I will be writing the history myself. Take care, Cassandra: history is always ready with quill and ink to be written. How will this chapter go, I wonder?”

“In the fire, if it knows what is good for it.” Cassandra rose to her feet, scooting the chair back unapologetically and making her retreat. Watching her go, Varric couldn’t help but chuckle. Inquisitor Trevelyan was right – their friend was all out of sorts.

\--

Supper had been drawing to a close, and Cassandra felt it only fitting to say goodnight to the Inquisitor and her friends who had grouped together towards the Throne-end of the room. They all looked as though they were reminiscing, but when Cassandra approached, their minds were all reminded of that one thing that happened this morning with their best friend leaving and not saying so much as a word about her budding romance with the Seeker of the Inquisition.

They turned and made room for her in their triumvirate position.

“Seeker, so good to see you here,” Naomi greeted, a warm grin lacing her words with compassion.

“Likewise, Naomi. I came to bid my goodnight to you all before I retire. I see no reason in prolonging this day of all days any further,” she said, turning her attention to Theia, who looked ready to say she was sorry a thousand times, and then an extra dozen times after that.

“Seeker, I,” her false start showed just how conflicted she was about her part in all this. Veronica had worn down on her patience, and now she had begun to beat herself up about it all.

“No, Inquisitor, it is alright. I am not upset with you in any way.”

“That is…a comfort to hear. If there is anything I can do, please tell me?”

“Not unless you can reverse time and allow me a change to have never embarked on such an unwise path, then, I will say no.”

“Perhaps we should all take a day trip to Redcliffe with Magister Alexius and see what we can stir up,” Veronica said, chalice rim to her lips as she felt less-than-soft about the situation. It was hard to disarm Veronica of her can-do, black-and-white perspective. Tonight was especially difficult given she was aggravated at the loss of their friend to the Montsimmard black hole.

“That is hardly funny, Veronica,” Naomi curbed, her eyes narrowing.

“Well, it wasn’t supposed to be funny.”

“Veronica, do me a favor, and remind me in the next life to send your bitter ass packing when you come calling for an ally,” Theia chided, folding her arms.

“That assumes a lot about whether or not I would elect to be friends with you a second time, Theia-Bird.” Veronica smiled, taking a swig of wine before rubbing her friend’s overstressed shoulder. “Come now, I am only trying to provide a diversion.”

“Diversions are only fun when the people around you elect to participate, Ver,” Naomi said over her shoulder before she inched in closer to Cassandra. She turned her attention fully to her now, trying to make recompense for her friend’s salted attitude. “Seeker, if there is anything you need for sleeping or stress relief, please let me know. I can put together some sleep aids for your tea.”

Cassandra was unused to so much generosity on the part of Mages. First it was Theia with her friendship and alliance in battle, then Olivia’s keen sweetness. Even Dorian, Vivienne, and Solas, had proven dependable and sympathetic across differences. Now, Naomi was mothering her like she did the other Foxes. For the first time in her life, Cassandra more safe than sorry to be in the company of such beings. Perhaps she needed to reevaluate just who she knew she could depend upon to be there for her.

“Thank you, Naomi, but I am afraid tonight I will have to manage on my own. Perhaps later,” she responded kindly.

Naomi nodded, understanding that boundaries were important. She was one of the few in her group that took such care.

From outside the Hall, thunder began to clap in the sky. Theia turned her eyes towards the mosaic windows, seeing a sharp crack of light dance across the air. Then, the windows began to take an onslaught of rain. The Inquisitor grinned, feeling at one with her powers in their environmental state. Thunderstorms were one of her favorite occasions.

“How wonderful, at least we won’t be forced to sleep during a boring night tonight,” she commented.

“Ugh, Theia, you’re the only one who thinks this is a good omen, and not something foreboding like out of a horror tale,” Naomi replied, folding her arms as she recalled the way thunderstorms in the Hinterlands made life harder for her and her late Husband to keep their farm animals safe.

“Thunderstorms are power and potential, Naomi. They make impossible things come to pass.”

“How romantic, I almost feel my dinner wanting to repeat on me,” Veronica chuckled.

Cassandra watched the windows quietly, not wanting to egg on any debate or argument. She couldn’t help but see, though, just what the Inquisitor was talking about. She herself had weathered many storms, and rarely had she took time to stare back at them as they orchestrated themselves in the sky. She had always been preoccupied with what was right in front of her nose.

And now, the one person she desired to be just so, was gone. Or was she?

\--

As the group of women lost track of their conversation, watching the storm through the windows, a sharp and loud aching sound rung out from across the Hall calling their attention to the other direction. Everyone else’s heads whipped around, wanting to see who would dare open the Hall during such a scourge of a storm. Eyes widened as lightning currents stretched from behind the opening doors, as if they themselves were responsible and not someone or something.

As voices gasped and muttered, Theia hastily went down the shallow stairs in front of the Inquisitor’s chair, wanting to get a better look. Cassandra followed after her whilst Naomi and Veronica hung back.

Was it some Pride demon, having gotten lose from a Fade rift nearby? Was it the storm going haywire?

No, it was one Mage taking advantage of adverse weather to act upon her angst. Her powers larger than life, but her petite and refined frame showing itself in the middle of the open doorway, torrential downpour behind her. The same white cloak she had worn when she entered the carriage, drenched and heavy. Her hood remained on her head as she huffed, the combination of feeling cold and warm from enchanting proving a most unpleasant sensation.

While a roar of thunder sounded off behind her, the entire room was quiet.

Olivia stepped forward and into the Hall, between the first pair of fireplaces. In a dramatic show, she unhooded herself, revealing her wet head of tousled hair, curled from their hours in braids, and her equally soaked face.

Cassandra and Theia exchanged a quick glance, before they both took off in a jog down towards her. Josephine and Leliana watched from the upper right corner of the room, as the girl who had seemed so easily understandable surprised everyone. Josephine smiled, holding back a relieved and excited giggle, whilst Leliana grinned.

“What a show,” the Spymaster commented.

As Theia and Cassandra finally came in close enough to ask what had happened, Theia hung back where Cassandra kept going. She knew just what Olivia had come back for, after all, and it wasn’t to hug her best friend one last time.

“Olivia!” Cassandra said, standing in front of her squarely.

“Seeker,” she shivered a bit, “I…oh, dammit!” she growled. It was the first time Cassandra had heard her have animus in her voice. She watched as Olivia yanked off the buckle on her cape collar, tossing it to the floor and sliding out of her robe. Now, it was just her in this powder blue down, drenched a foot up her hemline.

“Olivia, what are you doing here?” Cassandra asked again, her voice full of hope and surprise.

“I was almost stopped at an inn for the evening, when…it occurred to me, like the silly girl I am…” she took a deep breath, holding out her open hands at either side of her, “I am not meant for this.”

Cassandra shook her head once, her brows raised in confusion. “Meant for what?”

Olivia sighed. “I hate light colors. I hate this dress! It makes me feel like a bird’s egg. I hate the fabric, I hate the design, I hate all of this…shit!” a curse now. Olivia was really at her end of the line.

From down the other side of the room, Veronica could hear her use of a “bad” word, and it made her smirk. “That’s my girl,” she whispered to Naomi, who grinned in return.

Olivia, unsatisfied with her testimony being merely rhetorical, went to work ripping the dress off of herself. Now, both Cassandra and Theia shifted their attention. Cassandra held her arms out, wishing to stop her from making a choice she would perhaps regret.

“Olivia, wait, this…”

“No! I am done with this!” She said, ripping down the seam line at the front of the bodice. She knew just where to yank, where to pull, to get an Orlesian gown to fall apart. It made Leliana and Josephine wince, watching a perfectly good gown be torn asunder.

Finally she pulled her arms out of the constricting sleeves, and shoved the dress down to the ground, revealing another corset, a silken chamise underneath, and linen skirts. Her cleavage out for the world to see, and it made Cassandra both aroused and bashful.

Breathing heavily, Olivia was far from done.

“I like black! I like black dresses, I like black jewelry, I like darkness, and mystery, and adventure! I am a bloody Mage who survived a rebellion’s worth of slaughter! I am a Temptress, and a warrior, and an assassin! I’ve killed men not worth a damn and I’ve fended off death more times than I can count!”

Cassandra watched as she finally erupted into a glorious storm of her own, each admonition something she had felt drawn to, but never heard Olivia admit out loud: the woman who danced and sang, but wore dark-colored dresses, who loved when she was told frightening stories at night with no candlelight, who all the children loved and adults fawned over. Everyone believed she needed to be protected, but the truth was that enemies and idle bodies needed protection from her. It was all in her, all possible, and beautiful.

A smile started to evolve on the Seeker’s face as she listened to her. But, again, Olivia was far from done.

“I hate those silly masks they make me wear night after night, I hate soirees! I hate everything to do with Orlesian food. Those finger sandwiches are disgusting! I want breads, and meat, and pastries, and not worry about whether or not I am gaining weight! Maker, I want to gain weight! I want to dance because I want to and not because people want to see something pretty!” she stopped to catch her breath. Clearly, she had not pre-planned this glorious speech.

“Olivia, you’re going to faint if you’re not careful,” Theia warned from behind, not wanting to disturb a romantic scene, but her concern for her friend possibly falling and hitting her head prevailed.

“I’m fine, I just, I need to get this out,” she breathed, placing a hand on her stomach as she turned her gaze back to Cassandra. Her voice was quieter, but still assertive and able to be heard in the space surrounding them. The Hall was good at making voices echo.

“Seeker – Cassandra – I know that I am not the person you envisioned. I know that I am silly, and clumsy, and I am complicated. I sing in my sleep and I befriend too many small children. I do not even know yet why I feel this way, or what I can compare it to…but I…” her lips parted as she took in one more breath of bravery, “I am in love with you. For the rest of my days, no matter how many there are, I want to be here, in the midst of danger and the unknown. I want to have my heart skip a beat when you come back to me from your journeys. I want to come with you. I want to be someone you can be proud to be with, and not someone’s caged bird. Please, tell me I did not estrange you from me forever. Tell me…” She stopped to regain her lost breath again.

“Ugh, sweet Maker,” she grumbled, reaching and untying her corset strings and pulling them apart, giving her some room to actually intake air. She opened it wide enough to maintain decency whilst also giving her some relief. The people in the room wondered just how far it would go before she would drop the corset all-together. Dinner and erotic entertainment: Skyhold was looking more and more Orlesian by the day. Or, perhaps Tevinter, as Dorian would tease.

Cassandra took a step forward, wanting so badly to cover her in a blanket or something warm, but there wasn’t anything but her words now. Olivia had broken herself apart, stormed Skyhold, literally and figuratively, and now she was here. It all felt like she was making up for the lack of romantic humor she had in previous nights, injecting a strong dose that could overpower the sensibilities of any man or woman.

Still, even with the overwhelming nature of it all, Cassandra knew. She knew what she wanted.

“Olivia,” her crooked smile framing the voice of a romantic, and not of a hardened warrior, “are you going to just stand there breaking people’s hearts, or are you going to kiss me?”

Silence humbled the room. Everyone simultaneously wondered if the wine had been spiked with a hallucinogenic, to be hearing such candor and romance come from Cassandra Pentaghast of all people.

Olivia’s breathing had quieted, but the labor had been replaced with crying. Tears fell fearlessly down her face now, joining with the rainwater that had soaked into her pores and complexion.

“You’re so silly,” she breathed. Then, in a flash, she rushed towards her. Reaching her hands up, she felt Cassandra lift her into the air. Her thighs wrapped around the Seeker’s waist like they did during their dance that felt so long ago. Olivia giggled haplessly as Cassandra whirled around once, framing her face with her gentle hands as Cassandra wrapped her arms around her lower back.

Olivia wasted no more time, and she kissed her lover like she had just come home from the final battle of a war she had waged within herself for years. For a moment, they were alone in this vast and warm space, no audience, no friends, no allies with acidic opinions. This was just for them.

Cassandra returned her kiss with as much passion and fervor as she had wished to express the last two days in anticipating her leaving. Now, she had her chance that she craved, and she wasn’t going anywhere. This sweet, angelic, precocious, brilliant woman wasn’t going anywhere. She felt the rainwater dripping off of her hair and onto her clothes and skin, and it sent a chill up her back.

She was real, and she was here, and that was the most romantic and impossible thing.

 

Back towards the other end of the dining hall, Vivienne herself came to stand beside Josephine and Leliana. Josephine was choking back tears into her handkerchief, whilst Leliana grinned with subtle pride.

“Now, that is the scene I envisioned before. How delicious.”

“Yes, and so romantic,” Josephine said with a brittle tone, in a rare show of impulsive emotion.

“And to think, going from a regional heiress to a Princess of Nevarra in one day. Quite the upgrade, if I do say so myself.”

“I imagine the tongues will be wagging for weeks. The Seeker will want to crawl out of her own skin soon enough,” Leliana smirked.

“Oh, hush, let us not think of such things now. This is something to enjoy in the moment,” Josephine teased, swallowing back a round of tears.

On the other side, Naomi and Veronica watched with heartfelt relief to see their friend finally letting go of the shreds of herself she had carried for so long after their time on the road.

“Well, shit,” Veronica muttered, she too holding back tears.

Naomi muffled a laugh, elbowing her in the arm. “Look at you, you softened-up puppy,” she teased under her breath. Her eyes then made contact with Theia’s as the Inquisitor walked back to them, seeing no role in the situation for her to be directly beside the couple who were now making out in the middle of the Great Hall.

“Maker, will you two also have this in store for me on my down time? I feel like my hair is now grey, and not white,” she cursed, folding her arms as she turned to watch them.

Both Naomi and Veronica felt their stomachs churn, and the eyed each other with a look of “you snitch, I snitch,” before shaking their heads. Thus began a concert of their pitiful attempts to deter Theia’s curiosity:

“No, not at all,” Naomi began,

“Of course not, shit, Theia, you think I have time?” Veronica interjected.

“I mean, I have only just recovered from my illness, and—“

“You’re always so judgemental, you of all people—“

“It wouldn’t be fair considering I should still be grieving—“

“And you know what else?”

Theia rolled her eyes watching them try to come across as authentic in their responses.

“Alright! Enough! I get it, you’re both insufferable harlots.”

The women hushed, now. Looking ahead, Naomi bit her lip, whilst Veronica clenched her teeth like she was eroding rocks to sand between them.

“…But, I suppose you insufferable harlots are also my sisters, and I will stick a knife in anyone who dares make you feel ashamed.” Theia gave a sly grin, taking hold of Naomi’s hand. That made both her comrades smile, even if they were not yet ready to admit to anything in open air. Besides, this moment was Olivia’s, and she deserved it.

The last witness perspective worth mentioning was, of course, Varric’s. Smiling as if he had won the greatest and most satisfying hand of Wicked Grace, he sat in his chair, having taken in the entire scene from what felt like the front row. He took a sip of his ale, and after he swallowed, shook his head.

“Well, shit. Now I definitely owe Hawke fifty sovereigns,” he said to himself, hushed enough so as to not accidentally provoke Cassandra’s wrath.


	8. Letting Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having returned to Skyhold for good, Olivia now has the chance to embrace the life she was too scared to. The women share a night of hopeless romance -- the kind that Olivia had averted for so long -- as more walls are broken down between them.

While having an audience was enthralling, Olivia and Cassandra felt it only necessary to retire for the continuation of their embrace. Some visuals were best kept between them, much to the chagrin of everyone in the dining hall who looked as if not even Corypheus himself could distract their attention from the scene of the two most unlikely pair in all of Thedas sucking each other’s lips off one another in the public.

They were as they had been that first night: stumbling all over each other as they made their way to Cassandra’s chambers. Though, about 2/3 of the way up, Cassandra became impatient and picked Olivia up again, this time like a damsel in distress as she had one arm under her legs and one arm under her back. Olivia, of course, giggled with surprise feeling her feet be removed from the ground, and hooked one arm around her neck whilst her kissing re-commenced.

Once they had found their way to her door, Cassandra in her ever-subtle style chose to kick it open rather than let the woman who had come out of the storm like a vision down from her grip. Walking in and heading like a beeline for the bed, Olivia relinquished control of the situation, wishing to see where this was going to go.

And it went places, places she had always wanted to go, but never had the time, or the freedom.

\--

During a brief intermission in their lovemaking, Olivia found herself in her favorite place to be: straddling Cassandra’s lap while she leaned back up against the headboard, hands feeling up and down her sides as she kissed her. Feeling her touch go up towards her underarms, she arched her back more into her hold while her own hands cupped Cassandra’s neck and jawline with a gentle feel.

Feeling Cassandra pull her lips away from her, she, too, sat back a bit. Gazing into her eyes that could have held the universe within them for all she knew, her fingers reached so as to stray into the hair around the Seeker’s temples. She smiled like she had never smiled before a day in her life, eager to try something new and exciting.

“What, my darling?” she cooed, her chest now skin-on-skin with hers.

Cassandra had never experienced such a whirlwind of euphoria before – well, perhaps not since her Rite becoming a Seeker – but that was different. That day was wholly pure, unfettered divinity realized. This was complicated, messy, and raw. All her life she had likened the sensation of this to a life of holistic faith and reverence for the Maker; now, she was feeling a new take on it, one that was dirty as it was clean.

Underneath it all, there was the one woman who induced it all into existence: her tangled blonde hair, her honey-colored irises, her poised and petite frame that could conduct lightning in its bones. Hearing her question, her mind wandered back into the room, and into bed with them. She wished to say so much, but she found it all to be nonsensical and flurried.

“I cannot tell you how much it means to me that you came back. I thought I would never see you again.”

Olivia tilted her head, folding some of her hair back behind her ear. “I almost didn’t, truth be told.”

“What convinced you to turn around, then?”

Olivia’s hand wandered down Cassandra’s chest, her open and embracing palm feeling the contours of her collar bone and then her soft breasts underneath it. She blinked once as she thought to herself.

“I wondered to myself why I gave you the necklace. I hadn’t planned on it, actually. I carry it with me on all my travels, which is why it was on my person when you came down the stairs. You surprised me with your goodbye – I thought surely you wouldn’t be able to stomach it. It was impulsive, a last act of desperation from a woman who didn’t know what she was doing, but was doing it anyway.”

Cassandra caressed her face with her hand, a sensation Olivia leaned into with her chin and jaw like she was magnetically attracted to its feel.

“I almost mounted a horse and took off after you, after you did that.”

“I’m glad you didn’t. I had to….I had to figure this out for myself. Theia and Veronica always want to save me, but, I needed to save myself from my own choice.”

“I knew you were capable of it, which is why I stopped myself. Much as I would have liked to be the heroine rogue that rescues you from an unpleasant Marriage,” Cassandra smirked, recalling the Bard’s tale they had danced to at the wedding. The Tale of Frieda the Fallen, now perhaps there would be the tale of Olivia, who went back on her own sterling principles for the one woman who could promise her a most perfectly imperfect life.

“That would have been a sight,” Olivia nodded as she giggled under her breath, “I am sure Montsimmard would be quaking at your feet by the end of the day. But, my darling, you needn’t have risked so much to have me. You already did, and I was simply too scared to admit it. I am sorry I put you through this.”

“Olivia,” Cassandra pulled her in closer, to where their foreheads and noses were but a mere couple inches from each other. “If it meant chasing the horizon line down until I came to the edge of the world, I would have pursued you.”

“Silly, the whole point of a horizon line is that it is unreachable, remember?”

“Yes. I do not mince my words, woman.”

Olivia’s eyes narrowed, and she smiled once more. Her hands gripped into Cassandra’s short hair as she kissed her deeply, breathing quick air between their throats as she curled herself into her. She was hers, like a body belonged to a grave, and the soil belonged to the Earth.

Cassandra kissed her back with renewed fervor, now, feeling her surrender into her love. She tightened her grip onto her lower back, craving every inch of her to be on her own skin. Her curiosity became inflamed when she felt Olivia’s hips start to grind deep and low on her, subtle enough to think she could get away with it. Not on Cassandra’s time, though. So, when Olivia’s lips wandered from her own, down to her neck, she took the chance to call her out on her maneuver.

“You are trying to provoke me?” she breathed, still feeling Olivia’s dancer’s hips confidently rock against her. From below, she heard a whimsical chuckle reverberate from her lover’s throat.

“I tease,” she purred, before letting her teeth nibble on the sensitive part between her jaw and neck, eyes closed as she took in her taste. Cassandra could feel a tide of competitiveness in her chest when she heard Olivia boast like that, as if she had no repercussions to her actions. Not to be outdone, she went straight to the core of Olivia’s weakness, and reached a hand down between her legs, prompting her to raise her hips a bit off of the lap she had been grinding into unabashedly.

Boldly, she traced her fingers inside her, feeling the hot and soaked inner hearth of her body welcome her hand.

Olivia, surprised and bluff promptly called, stopped her dancing and instead lurched forward a bit, hand instinctively reaching and gripping the rim of the headboard as she let out a sharp exhalation onto Cassandra’s shoulder. Feeling Cassandra’s hand in motion inside her, she let out a desirous moan, cracking with a slight grit as she lowered her mouth onto the skin above Cassandra’s collar bone.

“Oh, you, you’re so…” she breathed, trying to recapture a semblance of her focus, but it was going, going, gone.

“Unfair? Or good?” Cassandra breathed into her ear whilst she used her other hand to support her lover’s back. This was not going to be a quick exchange.

“B…both,” Olivia stuttered, gripping tighter onto the headboard that began to crack and crick under her grip. Her other hand reached underneath Cassandra’s arm and braced into her shoulder blade. “Faster,” she moaned.

Cassandra did what she was instructed to do – by someone she had no problem being instructed by – and honed in with two fingers onto her most sensitive location. The one she had been practicing pursuing every night they shared together. It had been a learning curve, to be sure, but Olivia proved to be the most patient and…inspiring teacher. Now, she was being lavishly rewarded for her stewardship.

“Oh, right there. Oh, Maker,” Olivia admitted a slight whine in her tone, before her teeth began to bite down on Cassandra’s shoulder. The sensation of her teeth on sent the Seeker’s nerves ablaze – she loved it when Olivia showed the grit to her softness. Particularly when it meant she was getting down to the bottom of what made her lose her mind in bed.

Just as she thought she had Olivia on the ropes, she felt her begin to grind her hips once more against her hand, now. Back and forth, up and down, her hips swung like a pendulum into her feel, causing her to have to keep up with her a bit more. The combination of the movement and the preciseness of her fingers made Olivia all-the-more enraptured. Rolling her eyes closed, she pulled away and laid her head back as she sat straight up in the air.

The sight of her face, her round features and pointed nose, and the refined angles of her chin and jawline as she got lost in the moment. Cassandra wanted to bottle it up like one of her potions and preserve it like a memory in a glass bottle. Even more when Olivia reached both of her hands up into her hair, gathering it up off of her shoulders momentarily as she continued her rocking. Cassandra couldn’t resist her any longer -- using her supportive hand, she rocked Olivia back into her embrace, mouth going hungrily for her neck and collar bone as she kissed and breathed a current of hot air onto her skin.

Olivia collapsed willingly into her strength, placing her hands around the Seeker’s toned shoulders and bracing again. As she was being pushed steadily further and further to her limit, she could feel the magic dancing under her skin, reacting with her intertwined nerve endings. Feeling it grow impatient, she knew she had to do something to stave off the impulse. Letting out another sharp moan as Cassandra focused her fingers more, she reached and grabbed the headboard rim once again. As her hand slammed onto it, frosted ice erupted from her fingers and grew like vines across the rim, and onto the pillars on either side.

Cassandra flinched, pulling away from her so as to look up at her as her eyes focused, feeling less pressure in her body.

“Do you really want to look?” Olivia breathed, her mouth close to hers.

“…Not a chance,” Cassandra exhaled in return, before reaching and re-combining their lips. The emanating chill of the ice behind them sent a shiver up her spine, which in any other case would cause concern. But here, it was evidently helpful to her cause.

Then, Olivia began to moan louder and louder, feeling the tension in her body start to grow again, and this time it wasn’t from her magic. Part of her welcomed it with unfettered longing, and the other part of her started to feel fearful. She had rarely been loved like this, with her on top and exposed in the open air: men often liked her to be submissive, overpowered, and a sweet handful of pleasure more than anything. Something inside of her kicked off her flight or fight response – this was the first time Cassandra had gotten her to this point, and she was excelling. It began to overwhelm her that it was actually going to happen, and she would see her in one of the most intimate embraces one could see a person.

Instinctively acting upon her insecurity, Olivia curled herself into Cassandra’s embrace, face tucking into the crux of her shoulder and neck as her arms braced into her shoulder blades. She pursed her lips as she moaned within her own throat as she worried that maybe she had been too eager, too un-picturesque.

Feeling her posture and body change in its confidence, Cassandra reacted to it. Her hand that had supported Olivia’s hips stretched upward now, to under her right shoulder-blade, and her hand slowed within her just enough to keep the progression going.

“Are you alright? Have I hurt you?” she whispered against her neck, eyes flickering as she tried to see as much of her head and face as she could.

Olivia felt the attention on her, and knew then that her retreat was not unnoticed. Her chest tensed as she felt the slowing pace now, but she kept her hips slowly inching up and down.

“I just…I am shy,” she breathed, not having the patience or strength to be coy or charming. She was at her limit, feeling as though her entire personality had been stripped to its bare bones. She was here in front of her, without clothing or masks, and even though those fashions had been her captivity, she had grown implicitly dependent upon them.

Cassandra didn’t expect such a reason from the woman whom everyone believed had tried everything once under the sun. Hearing it, though, touched her. She knew it was meaningful that she would admit to such a hole in her armor. She tried to think of the best words she could possibly say to her in this moment without dismantling it all entirely.

“Olivia,” she whispered against the skin between her lover’s ear and her cheek. “I’ve got you. Just let go.”

Hearing her most patient command, Olivia, inhaled lightly and closed her eyes. She was right – there was no reason to fear anything in the moment, least of all Cassandra’s lack of devotion. She gave one solemn nod, still hiding in her shoulder. She tried to refocus unto the moment. Feeling Cassandra’s hand start to quicken once more against and within her, she was promptly motivated to do so.

After a moment, she found the inspiration to moan once more, and its octaves became louder and sharper with increasing rapidity. She aimed her calls and sounds into Cassandra’s skin, fingers increasingly tightening their embrace, fingernails beginning to crease into her back. A sharp cry as her body became suddenly rigid, her muscles constricting her around Cassandra’s body and touch, and then, silence laced with heavy breathing.

Cassandra, feeling victorious in her efforts to make Olivia feel just how she had made her feel, turned her attention to making sure she did not feel as embarrassed as she anticipated she would. Retrieving her hand and discretely wiping its soaked fingers along the bedsheets, she wrapped both arms around her waist and leaned back down, pulling Olivia as she breathed heavily down with her.

“What….where…” Olivia huffed as she felt Cassandra’s lips kiss the side of her forehead. “Where did…where did you learn that?” impressed clearly wasn’t the word for it.

Cassandra chuckled deeply to herself as her hand began to play with Olivia’s tangles of hair close to her head. “Do you really need to ask?”

Olivia smirked, pulling her head and shoulders up just so she could gaze back at her, lips parted she continued to recollect her breathing. “Perhaps I just wanted the credit out loud,” she concluded. Her eyes then caught the look of a dark impression in Cassandra’s shoulder, just above her collar bone, where she had bit down. She gasped a bit, her hand going to her mouth as she felt instantly guilty.

“What is it?” Cassandra asked, unimpressed.

“I think I…oh, no. I’m the worst,” she said as she gently rubbed the mark to see if maybe it was something else. But no, it was there, in the shape of a small bite of teeth.

“Did you leave a mark?” Cassandra held back a laugh while she rubbed her hand up and down Olivia’s torso.

“Yes, I’m afraid. I’m so sorry, Cassandra, the moment got away from me.”

“Olivia, it is alright. I wear armor every day, it is hardly a catastrophe. Besides, it is hardly out of place with all my scars and bruises.”

“Are you sure?” Olivia’s brows raised in worry.

“Yes. Now, can you kindly dispel the frost that has consumed the headboard before this sheets become soaked with something other than you?”

Olivia gasped a second time, but this time out of humorous insult and not genuine concern. She swatted Cassandra on her ribs, giggling a bit as she then reached and summoned a dispel enchantment over Cassandra’s head. The frost subsided after a moment of soft-glowing light, retracting its limbs from their origin on the headboard where she had gripped. Then, the light itself went out, and Olivia sighed contentedly now that the mess was pre-emptively cleaned up.

Feeling Cassandra’s hand pull her back down, she went willingly, laying on her stomach close to her side. She rested her arm on the Seeker’s chest and began tracing circles on her skin.

“Are you happy?” she heard Cassandra ask, chin titled so as to touch the top of Olivia’s forehead.

“Yes, very much so. Are you?” Olivia whispered, reaching her thigh to rest across Cassandra’s hips. The Seeker in return rested her hand on it, gripping lovingly on the suppleness of her.

“More than I dared imagine.”


	9. EPILOGUE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One year after Corypheus's defeat, Olivia and Cassandra have pursued their own destinies as best they can whilst still holding onto some of the things of the past. Being a power couple proves a potent mixture of reality, legend, and exquisitely-tailored black gowns.

The bitter chill of the mountain air was a different feel than the kind she had grown used to in Skyhold. It felt heavier, if that were possible, as if it were filling the absent space of a great and massive force. Cassandra’s life had felt like one heavy step after another into a new role and new calling: Leliana being named the new Divine created a vacuum in her own path, wherein she was allowed to fill it with something closer to her heart in rebuilding the Seekers into something credible and reliable again.

The fleece lining her sparing armor was itchy against her neck, but the warmth it provided kept her muscles supple and pliable during practice fighting. This morning, it was with her new would-be apprentice. His name was Petyr, and he hailed from a small village in the Nevarran countryside; his heritage made her ironically compelled to take him under her wing. He was proving a talented fighter, if not overly-tenacious and a bit sensitive. It reminded her of herself all those years ago, being beaten and tripped after every bold and unwise swing she took with her weapon.

“You are carrying your weight in your shoulders again,” she said in a monotone as she circled him, sword in hand and at her side as her hips shifted with the cumbersome weight of all the metal she carried on her body.

Petyr, heaving in and out of breath as he rolled his shoulders back, having countered another half-hearted swing from his Mentor’s sword, eyed her from over his shoulder.

“I am not!”

“Petyr, do not play coy with your superior. Drop your weight, or get off the sparring soil.”

He growled under his breath, clearly tired and exasperated more with himself then with his teacher. He collected his posture, shifting his weight voluntarily into his hips and abdomen, and lining up for another round of swordplay. Cassandra swung her sword in the air, the sound of its sharp ringing oscillating in and out of the air. She, too, took up her position – her infamous one, the one they would paint in portraits depicting what people could only envision as the final battle with Corypheus, the fair-haired Inquisitor leading them into victory.

“Again,” she commanded.

He went for the overhand again, advancing forward on the offensive. Cassandra baited him, blocking his swings and making him work for the proximity. Then, just as he had felt he finally got close enough to cause some theoretical damage, she swung a foot behind his knee and knocked him off balance just enough for him to fall slightly backwards. She then took a swing, colliding her blade with his, but this time he didn’t have the balance to counter with his weight properly. He went with her swing, folding himself onto the ground on his crouched knees as he managed to recover the fall.

“Good,” she exhaled as he slid out from her path, rising again to his feet. “That is what happens when you know where to put your weight.”

He huffed as he listened to her, feeling relieved to have at last countered a move that used to leave him flat on the ground. “Thank you, Seeker,” he replied, his grip on the sword tightening as he felt the rush of adrenaline that came from battling and the praise that sometimes happened.

“You’ve done well, go get your meal from the kitchens before they run out,” she said, approaching the table close by, outfitted with a simple array of sparring weaponry. Beside it was a rack of pole sticks and spears, also dulled for practice purposes. She found the sheath for her chosen tool, and promptly returned it into its casing. Her own greatsword rested on the ground – she never went far without it.

“Of course, Seeker,” he said, returning his own weapon and grabbing his overcoat from the corner of the table. “Oh, Seeker,” he said, turning around and stopping himself before he was to jog up the stairs and out of the sparring chambers.

“Yes, Petyr?”

“The men...well, they heard a rumor that she will be here any day now.”

Cassandra smirked without humor, loosening the straps of her armor on her right forearm. “You believe all rumors, and you will make a poor Seeker, Petyr.”

“Is it not true, then?”

“I have many allies visit here for business. Not every single one of them deserves pandemonium.”

“But, Seeker, the stories…”

“The stories are stories, some are true and others are embellished. Take care, Petyr, and know there is hardly a reason to get excited.”

“I see. I will do so, Seeker. Thank you. See you at dinner?”

“I would hope so, but something may yet call my attention elsewhere. Until later,” she eyed him from her periphery as he finally sought his leave.

As the open and cavernous sparring chamber grew still and quiet, Cassandra took one last overseeing glance at all the weaponry and supplies that had been furnished. She took great care to ensure all of the few and selectively recruited apprentices had a respect for the armory, and the weapons that kept them alive. It was one of the many principles she was a hardass about, and while many of the personnel under her authority felt sore about such strict leadership, they also undoubtedly respected and admired her.

From the rafter beams supporting the roofing of the chamber, a soft laugh echoed.

The Seeker shook her head, checking on some of the sword blades for overt wear and tear as she kept her attention away from whatever, or whoever, it was lurking in the wings.

“I hardly see what is so funny,” Cassandra played.

“You are always so hard on them, Cassandra. Why not give him something to be entertained by whilst he nurses his sparring wounds?” a lyrical and warm voice echoed once more.

“If I am not rigid, he will not know structure in his training, and it will soften him.”

“Perhaps you should let me spar with him, so he can learn about being softly lethal.”

“The point of being a Seeker is to be invincible in the face of mortal temptations to idleness, Olivia. I cannot achieve that in my mentorship if all of my trainees are too preoccupied being in love with you to focus on their lessons.”

“What better way to condition them then to give them a challenge in good fun.”

Cassandra now turned and looked up at the corner arched beam that her company’s voice emanated from. There, she saw the embodiment of the voice that haunted her dreams in both day and night visions: Lady Olivia Sinclair, dressed in her traveling gown she arrived in during the dark early hours of the morning, black as the night that welcomed her. Its tight bodice exquisitely tailored, with the plunging and narrow v-neck adding a flare of sex appeal to an otherwise modest ensemble. The start contrast of the fabric against its gold embellishment trim down the middle and on the hem lines made a striking coalescence with the glowing nature of her skin and hair, which was neatly kept in a voluminous bun.

The most striking feature of all though, was her face itself: Her eyes, encased in dark black eyeliner and powder which covered her entire eyelid, and made a sharp cat eye shape that was broad, almost like a mask painted onto her face. It brought out the fierce coloring of her kind eyes. Her lips were painted in a less opaque gold tint, metallic and looking sweet to the taste.

She looked like a corrupted Goddess come to life, and she liked it like that.

Cassandra gave a crooked grin, her body reacting with nerves seeing her woman look so striking and strong as she stood tall on the beam that was easily ten times her size.

“Your training suggestions are dually noted, now, would you come down from there before you scare the Ravens?”

“The Ravens adore me, silly,” Olivia smiled, before turning to come back down from whence she came. Unsheathing a dagger that was kept strapped to her thigh, she let down her dress skirts and slid down the side of the supportive supportive beam. She then stuck the dagger into the wood, breaking her fall down what was surely more than 20feet to fall otherwise. Letting go just when she felt the slowed pace of her fall, she pushed herself off the beam to fall singularly onto her own two feet. Landing in a crouched position, she rose and straightened her shoulders.

“Thank the Maker I convinced the seamstress to take off an inseam stitch in the shoulders, otherwise all of my gowns would be a waste of craftsmanship,” she dusted off her hands. Flattening out and adjusting her dress bodice, she made her way to Cassandra.

“Such commands from a Mistress Enchanter must be obeyed, I assume,” Cassandra replied as she began taking off her gloves.

In the months that followed Corypheus’s defeat, Olivia remained loyal to her friend the Inquisitor for many months, staying at Skyhold to oversee Apothecary projects and resource acquisition. Then, she was approached by the ever-persuasive Madame de Fer herself, and enlisted in becoming her assistant in studying life longevity alchemy. Losing her beloved Duke de Ghislain had inspired a side project of sorts, and she employed Olivia generously to oversee it while she focused on her more tumultuous responsibilities.

Then, when the College of Enchanters came to fruition after so many months of uncertainty and dispute between the different factions, Vivienne recommended Olivia to the position of Mistress Enchanter of Apothecary Sciences, one of the schools of study within the College itself. At first, Olivia was awe-struck: to be promoted to such a position of leadership at such a young age was unheard of, and she surely believed someone else was more qualified and experienced. However, no one had the resume she did in being an Inquisition ally and survivor of the Mage Rebellion, and lived to recount it – she also garnered a truly undeniable list of recommendations from some of the most powerful and influential women in Thedas.

Cassandra would have been one of them, but such a conflict-of-interest proved too temperamental to risk.

So, at the age of 27 and without a title or wealth purse to her name, Olivia became Mistress Enchanter Olivia Sinclair of Orlais, Principle Researcher of Apothecary Sciences at the College of Enchanters, one of the inaugural six people to steward schools in the newly-formed institution. She had spilled blood, sweat, and tears, and achieved her glory without the marriage bed of a noblemen or the assassin’s blade of a Temptress. Though, those ingredients still displayed their resonance in her behavior from time to time, and around the people whom she trusted enough to be vulnerable with.

Even with the esteem, it still graded on her humble heart to hear those closest to her use her Titles, or implicitly objectify her power.

“Cassandra, you know how I feel about using my title like I am some snobby aristocrat. I thought we agreed I would remain Olivia,” she sighed, placing her hands on her hips.

“We agreed that under my occupational roof that we would go by my rules, and under yours, you would be in charge. Are we in a scholar’s apartments outside of the Orlesian Capitol?”

“Cassandra.”

The Seeker chuckled. “I cannot help it. I am still besotted on how you looked in those ceremonial robes on your promotion day. You looked like a vision, and you deserved it,” Cassandra reached a bare hand and caressed her woman’s cheek, feeling her smile in reaction to her warm compliment. She wouldn’t need to picture it in her mind only for much longer – Madame de Fer commissioned a portrait of her to be hung in the College, or in her apartments, if that was her choice. She was still store from having to stand for so many hours with such heavy robes on her shoulders and body.

Olivia conceded, and made her hands busy with the straps securing the underside of her lover’s breastplate. She assumed correctly that it was time to remove the armor for now. Today was going to be full of diplomatic business, and fielding correspondences. Getting in an early morning training round helped Cassandra maintain her decorum and patience for such routines. Feeling Olivia peel her out of her armor encasing her chest, she couldn’t help but have her eyes locked on her. From the woman she met over a year ago, whose hair was messily gathered in a ponytail, and dresses dirtied from powders and stains, to who she was now: Olivia had proven herself at every turn. It was a wonder that, after all of it, she still desired to be the one to remove a woman’s sparring armor as if her hands were at her faithful service.

“I still remember helping you into your armor the night you left to fight Corypheus with Theia. How I could barely see the grooves and strap buckles while my eyes welled up with tears,” Olivia narrated as she gently pulled the breastplate off of Cassandra’s body, holding it with two hands as she returned it to the dummy the armor hung on.

“And I remember how much it devastated me to leave you behind,” Cassandra whispered, coming up behind her and wrapping her arms around Olivia’s waist. She placed her lips on the side of her head, and kissed the silken surface of her hair.

Olivia hummed sweetly. “Then how wonderful it was to see you come back to me,” Olivia placed her arms on top of Cassandra’s, and leaned her head back onto her shoulder. “I still dream of it, and wake up ready to re-live it.”

“I would love to relive the part when we retired from the celebration dinner,” Cassandra then spun her around to face her, arms still protectively snug around her sides as her eyes locked onto hers.

“With your schedule today? I’m afraid you’ll have to wait, my darling. Or find a Bard to sing your our song to hold you over,” she teased, kissing her on her cheek before breaking away from her hold. Cassandra growled under her breath as she felt her lover leave her arms, after they had spent so many months writing letters where they said they wished it were possible.

“Olivia, you will be the death of me,” she smiled, as she quickly came up behind her again, this time picking her up and lifting her unto the table, sliding the daggers and sparring swords off to the side as she made room for Olivia’s gown. Olivia gasped and laughed as she, the mouse, had been caught by the unsatiated cat.

“Oh, what now, Seeker?” she said through her laughter, “have you been vexed by the black dove of Orlais?” she recited the line from the Bard’s tale that was written after the Inquisition’s triumph, written and performed first by Maryden, it caught fire during the aftermath of the final battle with Corypheus, when everyone in Court could bear witness in their own way to their sordid love story. Olivia had gained the nickname “Black Dove” in relation to her refusal to marry the Lady Adalia, who in turn tried to slander her name and make her identity as a former rogue Mage known to everyone in the Empire. Thanks to such allies like Theia, Vivienne, and Leliana of course, they were able to turn what was once a derogatory nickname into a fearsome alias.

Cassandra slid her hungry hands up as she gathered Olivia’s skirts up further and further, exposing her legs which were outfitted in black lace stockings hooked onto her corset bodice and belt. She also noticed that, even with all the opulent fashion, Olivia still preferred to be barefoot. The two women did not break eye contact as she explored her a bit, and Olivia obliged her tastes.

Cassandra leaned in between her thighs, mouth achingly close to hers as her hands glided up the front of her thighs.

“Yes, I am hopelessly undone. Now, if you would only let me make you sing,” she whispered with her signature raspy voice that made Olivia’s nerve endings dance with longing.

Olivia grinned, and grabbing the collar of the Seeker’s underlayer, she pulled her in for a wonderfully sloppy and lust-filled kiss. Arching her back into her, she gripped her thighs around her waist, securing her position as they kissed with reckless abandon. Cassandra was always a sucker for her in black lace, especially when she played professionally hard-to-get.

They kissed like the world could wait, and the dawn had not come just yet. Cassandra’s hand on Olivia’s breast, Olivia sending one of her thighs upward to brace against her torso. Memory lane was proving a most scintillating adventure. 

Cassandra’s lips became ambitious, and she broke away in order to trail them down Olivia’s neck with forcefulness. Olivia in return wrapped her arms around Cassandra’s neck, breathing and slightly moaning in reaction to her touch that she had craved without satiation, night after night, in another world. Only this woman could touch her like this, because only this woman had the talent for it: the rest of the Empire could dissolve into dust for all she cared.

“Cassandra,” she breathed, “you are going to get us in trouble,” she managed to giggle lightly. The Seeker did not stop her advance though, even when she could feel Olivia heeding the duties that loomed on the wings. “My darling,” Olivia pulled more. Hearing Cassandra groan and lean into her shoulders, she knew she had finally gotten her reprieve.

“Olivia,” Cassandra groaned into her shoulder, “A sensible woman would take advantage of my break in decorum.”

Olivia lowered her leg and adjusted her skirts back over her lap, smiling mercifully as she held Cassandra’s weight against her. “A sensible woman wouldn’t embark on intrigue like this so early in the morning when she knows there are old, crass men walking the halls, silly.”

Cassandra finally gained the strength to pull herself away, but she remained in front of Olivia, hands resting on her thighs with her skirts in between her palm’s touch and her skin. It wasn’t the most ideal.

Then, from the doorway, a voice muffled but audible:

“Did she just call her silly?”

Both women looked over at the door immediately, now understanding that they were not exactly alone. Olivia held back a laugh, while Cassandra automatically went into her stone-cold and authoritative mindset. Pulling away from her lover, she grabbed one of the daggers and unsheathed it. Yes, it was dull, but with enough momentum it would still do a job well enough. Like, for example, break through a wood door.

Preparing it over shoulder, she promptly chucked it. It spun through the air with a vengeance, and created a brisk crash when it broke into the door, splitting through about halfway with a cut that was less-than clean.

“Maker!”

“Shit!”

“Ahh! Fuck this!”

The voices, two more masculine and one feminine, went from being thoroughly entertained to thoroughly terrified. Olivia held her hand tightly over her mouth as she suppressed her laughter, watching Cassandra approach the door and open it now to finally uncover just who dared spy on her. The three Apprentices, cradling themselves on the floor in the narrow hallway corridor, looked up at her as if they were saying the final Prayers. They had boldly dared to be voyeurs on the one Seeker who would undoubtedly punish them with a fury.

“What is the meaning of this!?” she growled standing over them with her hands on her hips.

“Seeker! We, we didn’t mean anything!”

“We just wanted to see if the sparring ground was being used, honest!”

“Yes, we are sorry! Please don’t—“

From behind their domineering Superior, the woman she had been caught with sauntered up in her thick, lavish gown. Her hands were clasped together in front of her as she came around her shoulder to stare down at them as well.

“Now, now, everyone, do not soil your smallclothes on my account. ‘Tis my fault, after all, for inspiring such a scene,” she smoothed things over like honey on tea, but even Cassandra’s temper couldn’t be fully suppressed. She glared down at the insubordinate charges, playing the bad cop to Olivia’s good cop.

“Maker, does that mean you’re her?” the woman said, lurching upwards but not quite daring to rise to her feet with Seeker Pentaghast looming over her.

“Who, dear?” Olivia asked innocently, knowing the answer but wanting it said out loud.

“The Black Dove of Orlais? The woman who slayed Templars and Chevaliers in their beds all over Fereldan and the Free Marches?”

Cassandra growled at the audacity of such a statement, innately defensive of Olivia’s good graces. Meanwhile, Olivia chuckled under her breath with poise, assuming the mask she so rarely had to utilize these days.

“My dear girl,” Olivia cooed, inhaling smoothly.

Then, in spine-tingling moment, Olivia’s complexion darkened like her bronze complexion was turning into onyx. It seeped in from her hairline, stretching like fog lines across her skin. Then, her eyes darkened from the middle of her pupils outward, until both eyes were entirely and opaquely black. A sly grin formed on her gold lips as the air around her began to thicken like smoke. Her hair even began to have an aura of darkness around her, like a halo of malevolence. Cassandra looked rather unimpressed in comparison to the group, but still displayed concerned, at the sight of her woman turning into what looked like a mixture of a demon and a siren. A few years ago, this would have provoked her to unsheathe her sword and swing first, ask questions later. Now, after all she had seen and done, it was little more than an interesting development.

Olivia, meanwhile, was scaring the living shit out of these three insolent apprentices. They instantly began to shake and crawl backwards, the girl in particular looking remorseful.

“Now, do you really want to find out?” Olivia cooed with a sinister sweetness, her eyes glowing like moonlight in their darkness.

Immediately, the girl began to quiver and yell. “Run!” she cried, turning to her compatriots and scooting off the floor into a sprint. The two followed after her after a brief moment of awe-struck confusion, and in what felt like a snap of her fingers, Olivia had sent three would-be-Seekers running with their proverbial tails tucked.

Cassandra watched as they disappeared down the dimly-lit corridor, before turning back to look at Olivia, who had snapped out of her incantation entirely, looking as though she had never even done it to begin with.

“Hm, it’s as if they always forget the part where it says I am a Mage. Harlot, assassin, rebel, Seeker’s Mistress, but not Mage? ‘Tis a wonder,” Olivia said, shaking her head, her mouth scrunching to one side.

“And you say I am the one who’s hard on subordinates,” Cassandra folded her arms, “I do not know if they will even go near me now after that show.”

“Oh, darling, of course they will,” Olivia giggled, “you’re a wonderful teacher and leader. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I will be in your study tending to some College matters. Do find some time to have afternoon tea with me, if you can” she cooed, rising to her toes as she leaned in and kissed Cassandra on her cheek. Without another word, she walked with joyful energy in her step down the corridor, the same way the group had ran in terror.

Cassandra watched her figure disappear into the dark hall, the dress proving potent camoflauge for her figure. She didn’t know whether to pay attention to her concern, her arousal, or her stress at facing a day’s worth of talking and diplomacy. Either way, she would carry herself with her chest out a little more that day, knowing she had a woman so utterly magnificent.


End file.
